A Falcon 9 rocket with multiple payloads lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday morning.
A Falcon 9 rocket with multiple payloads lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday morning. Credit: SpaceX photo

A Falcon 9 rocket delivered a collection of payloads including space telescopes, Earth-observers and other craft with a Sunday morning departure from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The two-stage rocket lifted off at 5:44 a.m. from Space Launch Complex-4 East on South Base. 

Minutes later the rocket’s first-stage booster returned to Vandenberg, landing at the former SLC-4 West site near Falcon’s launch pad.

The dedicated rideshare mission delivered dozens of payloads with various purposes into space. 

“The payloads on this mission will be deployed to a dusk-dawn sun-synchronous orbit, meaning the spacecraft will be flying roughly along the boundary between day and night, or twilight, where it’s always breaking dawn,” SpaceX said.

The sun-synchronous orbit provides a regular solar time for satellites which leads to consistent lighting for earth imaging or observing the sun, SpaceX said.

The Twilight mission payloads are stacked before being tucked into the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing prior the launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday morning.
The Twilight mission payloads are stacked before being tucked into the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing prior the launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday morning. Credit: SpaceX photo

The rocket successfully completed payload deployment in several sequences more than two hours after the launch.

Among the payloads were three linked to NASA. 

Pandora will collect visible and near-infrared light using a novel, all-aluminum 17-inch-wide telescope.

A Falcon 9 rocket with multiple payloads lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday morning before the first-stage booster returns to land at a site west of launch pad.
A Falcon 9 rocket with multiple payloads lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday morning before the first-stage booster returns to land at a site west of launch pad. Credit: SpaceX photo

Expected to operate for a year, Pandora will study the atmospheres of exoplanets, or worlds beyond the Milky Way solar system, and their stars with telescope trying to detect water vapor, hazes, and clouds, according to NASA.

Also on board were two NASA-sponsored CubeSats, SPARCS (Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat) and BlackCAT (Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope).

Santa Barbara-based Umbra also saw its newest synthetic aperture radar satellite travel, dubbed Umbra 12, to space Sunday morning.

Sunday’s liftoff marked the second of the year from Vandenberg. 

SpaceX is targeting Friday for the next Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg. with the 35-minute window opening at 8:18 p.m. The rocket will deliver a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. 

— Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.