Providing a loud farewell, the newest set of Starlink satellites rumbled away from Vandenberg Space Force Base, the first of two launches planned Friday for Falcon 9 rockets from both coasts.

The two-stage vehicle blasted off at 11:12 a.m. from Space Launch Complex-4 on South Base into what the launch commentator called “pretty darn clear” weather. Haze and a thin layer of clouds kept some Central Coast residents from having a clear view of the flight.

On board the Space Exploration Technologies rocket were 51 Starlink satellites designed and manufactured by SpaceX.

Deployment of the satellites occurred approximately 15 minutes after the launch.

The Starlink constellation, made up of thousands of satellites, has been designed to provide high-speed low-latency internet access for remote and rural areas across the globe. 

With the newest batch of satellites, SpaceX has sent more than 3,980 Starlink craft into orbit, according to the detailed tally kept by Jonathan McDowell, astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Starlink now is available in 47 countries around the world as the company rolls out service to various areas.

Friday’s mission marked the ninth flight for the first-stage booster which successful landed on the drone ship “Of Course I Still Love You” positioned in the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles south of the Central Coast. 

This was one of two Falcon rocket launches planned by SpaceX on Friday. 

The second mission was slated to occur Friday evening from Florida where a huge European-built communications satellite will be launched for London-based Inmarsat. 

The Vandenberg mission marked the 11th overall for SpaceX in 2023 and Falcon’s third flight of the year from the West Coast.