The ninth Falcon 9 rocket to carry Starlink satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base blasted off Wednesday afternoon accompanied by a long rumble — and barking dogs that live nearby.
The Space Exploration Technologies rocket launched at 4:10 p.m. from Space Launch Complex-4, where a low-level marine layer hovered across the valley blocking the site’s view.
However, the 223-foot-tall Falcon rocket quickly rose from the band of fog and climbed away, its rumble that followed unsettling some dogs in yards at Vandenberg Village residences.
Ventura-area residents also reported hearing what one person described on social media as a “thundering boom.”
It was the ninth launch of Starlink satellites since September 2021 from the West Coast.
“Another day, another launch,” one spectator said.
Delivery of the 52 Starlink satellites took place approximately one hour after launch.
“Deployment of 52 Starlink satellites confirmed — completing SpaceX’s second launch in ~7 hours!” SpaceX representatives said on Twitter.
The liftoff drew a few local residents to the Vandenberg Village site that looks across the valley to the launch pad.
The thick marine layer shrouded the rocket from cameras while sitting on the launch pad.
Less than 10 minutes later, the rocket’s first-stage booster landed on the drone ship, dubbed Of Course I Still Love You, positioned in the Pacific Ocean hundreds of miles south of the Central Coast.
SpaceX said Wednesday’s mission marked the fifth flight for the first-stage booster, which also carried one other batch of Starlink satellites, a pair of top-secret payloads and a German Earth-observation spacecraft.
Starlink is the SpaceX effort to build a constellation of satellites to provide Internet service in remote areas of the world where the access isn’t available or is unreliable.
Wednesday’s Falcon rocket launch from the West Coast marked the second of the day for SpaceX. Another Falcon rocket with the Dragon capsule carried humans into space for a NASA mission from Florida for a rendezvous with the International Space Station.
— 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.