California rocket launch today: How, where to see SpaceX Falcon 9 on Starlink mission
Another SpaceX rocket is due to launch over the weekend from Southern California, but you'll most likely have to wake up pretty early if you want to see it.
The commercial spaceflight company's Falcon 9 rocket is due to get off the ground as early as Sunday, June 8, from the Vandenberg Space Force Base. And according to SpaceX and Vandenberg, the rocket launch is targeted for early in the morning.
The two-stage 230-foot tall rocket, one of the world's most active, has become crucial in regularly deploying batches of internet-beaming Starlink satellites into what's called low-Earth orbit – an altitude that allows for things like satellites to circle Earth fairly quickly.
But it's important to keep in mind that rocket launches can be – and often are – scrubbed or delayed due to any number of factors, including poor weather conditions or unexpected issues with spacecraft. Check back with the VC Star for any updates on the impending rocket launch.
Here's what to know about the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, as well as when and where to watch it:
California rocket launch schedule: Upcoming SpaceX missions from Vandenberg
The SpaceX launch could happen as early as Sunday, June 8, with backup opportunities available Monday, June 9, according to a Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory.
A four-hour launch window opens at 6:34 a.m. PT Sunday,, according to a launch alert from the Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The launch, using a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to deliver 26 Starlink satellites, will take place from Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California.
Following the delivery and deployment of the satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage booster will aim to land on a SpaceX drone ship, nicknamed "Of Course I Still Love You," in the Pacific Ocean. This allows for SpaceX personnel to recover the booster so it can be reused in future spaceflights.
Residents of Santa Barbara County, San Luis Obispo County and Ventura County could hear sonic booms, according to an alert from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Sonic booms are brief, thunder-like noises that are often heard from the ground when a spacecraft or aircraft travels faster than the speed of sound.
SpaceX provides a livestream of the launch on its website beginning about five minutes before liftoff, along with updates on social media site X.
Because Vandenberg is an active military base, the launch complex does not host public viewings of launches.
But if conditions are clear, rocket launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base in Vandenberg, California, can be viewed from several locations as far as Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
Space Launch Schedule, a website dedicated to tracking upcoming rocket launches, provided a list of places in California to catch the launch in person:
13th Street and Arguello Boulevard, the public site with the closest views of SpaceX launches
Floradale Avenue and West Ocean Avenue, officially designated as the 'viewing site for SLC-6' (space launch complex-6)
Renwick Avenue and West Ocean Avenue, another intersection close to the base where spectators can park
Santa Lucia Canyon Road and Victory Road, provides a partial view of Complex 4
Surf Beach on Ocean Avenue, the only location where the public can view the ignition and liftoff of rockets from Complex 4. Public access is at the Amtrak Surf Station parking area, but the area is closed in the case of back-to-back launches.
The city of Lompoc in Santa Barbara County is filled with places to catch a rocket launch. The city's tourism bureau, Explore Lompoc, has this list with additional viewing locations:
, 6851 Ocean Park Road, which, while it doesn't have a view of the launch pad itself, is located only four miles from the launch site and provides a good vantage to see rockets get off the ground. Parking is limited, and law enforcement will close the road to the beach once parking is full.
, 1 Hancock Drive, a community college located nine miles from the launch site where both the launch pad and rocket's tip can be seen before liftoff.
, N A Street and McLaughlin Road, located within 10 miles of the launch site, is filled with large fields for activities or for spectators to set up chairs.
Elon Musk, the world's richest man, founded SpaceX in 2002.
The commercial spaceflight company is headquartered at Starbase in South Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border. The site, which is where SpaceX has been conducting routine flight tests of its 400-foot megarocket known as Starship, was recently voted by residents to become its own city.
SpaceX conducts many of its own rocket launches, most using the Falcon 9 rocket, from both California and Florida. That includes a regular cadence of deliveries of Starlink internet satellites into orbit, and occasional privately-funded commercial crewed missions on the Dragon.
The most recent of SpaceX's private human spaceflights, a mission known as Fram2, took place in April. SpaceX was also famously involved in funding and operating the headline-grabbing Polaris Dawn crewed commercial mission in September 2024.
SpaceX also benefits from billions of dollars in contracts from NASA and the Department of Defense by providing launch services for classified satellites and other payloads.
Established in 1941, the Vandenberg Space Force Base, previously Vandenberg Air Force Base, is a site for both military, civil and commercial space launches.
Agencies like NASA and companies like SpaceX routinely launch spacecraft from Vandenberg, a site where missile testing also takes place. Just recently, for instance, Texas spaceflight company Firefly Aerospace attempted to launch prototype satellites into orbit for Lockheed Martin from the base.
Owned by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Starlink is a constellation of more than 6,700 satellites that provide internet service to customers around the world.
SpaceX, a commercial spaceflight company, has spent more than six years delivering the satellites to orbit with a regular cadence of rocket launches from Florida and California.
While most satellite internet services operate from single geostationary satellites orbiting Earth at about 22,236 miles, Starlink is a constellation of thousands of satellites that operate from a low-Earth orbit, about 341 miles up. That allows Starlink's satellites to have lower latency and data time between user and the satellite, improving performance of things like streaming, online gaming and video calls.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: SpaceX rocket launch today? Where to see next California liftoff
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
NASA, Pentagon push for SpaceX alternatives amid Trump's feud with Musk
NASA and Pentagon officials moved swiftly this past week to urge competitors to Elon Musk's SpaceX to more quickly develop alternative rockets and spacecraft after President Donald Trump threatened to cancel Space X's contracts and Musk's defiant response. Government officials were especially stunned after Musk responded to Trump with a salvo of his own: SpaceX would stop flying its Dragon spacecraft, a move that would leave the space agency with no way to transport its astronauts to the International Space Station. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. Musk later recanted his threat. But it alarmed officials at NASA, which entrusts SpaceX with the lives of its astronauts, and at the Pentagon, which relies heavily on the company to launch its most sensitive satellites. The worried reaction within space and national security agencies highlights the risks of the government's heavy dependence on SpaceX for crucial tasks, including classified missions. SpaceX, with billions of dollars in government contracts, flies people and cargo to the ISS, launches satellites for the Pentagon and develops satellites used by intelligence agencies. The concerns are compounded by the fact that its competitors have been slow to catch up, leaving SpaceX's dominance largely unchallenged and the government with few options. This account is based on interviews with a dozen people in industry and government who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal deliberations. One NASA official said that watching the feud between Trump and Musk play out on social media Thursday at first was 'entertaining.' But once Musk called for decommissioning Dragon, 'it turned really terrifying.' There was a similar reaction in the Pentagon, where a person said staff officers 'looked at each other and said, 'oh, it's not funny anymore.' There was a realization that we're not watching TV. This is a real issue.' Musk's behavior has worried NASA officials before. In 2018, NASA ordered an investigation into SpaceX's safety culture after Musk appeared to take a small hit of marijuana on the Joe Rogan podcast. But his sudden threat on social media to cut off NASA's access to the orbiting space station, which has cost NASA some $100 billion over its lifespan, 'crossed a line,' one former space agency official said. 'When you realize that he's willing to shut everything down just on an impulse, that kind of behavior and the dependence on him is dangerous. … I can tell you there is deep concern within NASA.' The rift between Musk and Trump was also fueled by the White House's withdrawal of Jared Isaacman's nomination to be NASA administrator. Isaacman had flown to space twice with SpaceX and was seen as closely aligned with Musk. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. Since Thursday's exchange, at least three commercial space companies, RocketLab, Stoke Space and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, have been contacted by government officials about the status of their rockets and when they might be available for government missions, according to four people familiar with the inquiries. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Officials at Sierra Space, which is developing a Dream Chaser spaceplane that could deliver cargo to the space station, were in a meeting with NASA officials on Thursday as the Trump-Musk feud was getting underway. 'Sierra Space stands ready to ensure uninterrupted support for the International Space Station,' Fatih Ozmen, the company's CEO, said in a statement to The Post. He added that 'NASA mentioned to us that they want diversity and do not want to rely on a single provider.' Dream Chaser 'is in final testing and integration at Kennedy Space Center,' Ozmen said. 'We are working closely with NASA leadership to fly the vehicle later this year.' The company is also working on a variant of Dream Chaser to carry astronauts, he said, 'which NASA is studying.' Musk's declaration also rattled staffers on Capitol Hill. A key congressional committee asked about the status of Boeing's Starliner space capsule vehicle, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry. NASA intends to use Starliner to fly crews to the space station along with SpaceX's Dragon capsule. The spacecraft is years behind schedule, however, and during its first human spaceflight mission to the ISS last summer, it ran into so many problems that NASA decided it was unsafe to return to the crew with Boeing. But with Musk threatening to end Dragon, the congressional aide wanted to know when Starliner would be ready to fly again. In recent months, NASA has said little about the status of Starliner. But in response to reporters' questions, the agency issued a statement late Friday saying that it is planning for a Starliner flight to the space station 'in early 2026, pending system certification and resolution of Starliner's technical issues.' NASA is still evaluating whether the capsule would fly with astronauts on board or with cargo only. Even though he later recanted, Musk's threat to curtail NASA's use of Dragon could be damaging to a company that has been one of the government's most trusted partners, said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. 'It's almost like an embargo of the space station,' he said. 'Musk was saying he is going to cut NASA off from its own laboratory in space.' Harrison said the threat was reminiscent of Musk's refusal to activate the Starlink Internet system so that Ukraine could carry out an attack on Russian forces in 2022. That decision also prompted an outcry that the nation's defenses should not be in the hands of a single person or company. Given that SpaceX has experience operating its Starlink Internet satellite constellation, it had been considered to be a natural choice for Trump's proposed Golden Dome missile defense shield, which would rely on swarms of satellites in orbit. But Musk's threat was so impulsive that it will undoubtedly rattle defense officials, Harrison said, who would not look favorably on the 'idea that the nation's missile defenses could be held hostage to the twittering whims of Elon Musk.' For NASA's astronauts, Musk's social media post 'got very personal' because it could impact their ability to fly, said Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut who previously worked at SpaceX. 'We shouldn't overreact to a fit of pique on social media. But when your hopes and dreams are tied up in this, you can't help but think, 'Oh my goodness am I going to fly in space?'' The Pentagon has recently made an effort to broaden the military and space industrial base, allowing for competition to drive down cost and increase innovation. The Space Force last year released a strategy that said the service would seek to avoid 'overreliance on any single provider or solution.' To allow more companies to vie for lucrative space contracts, the Pentagon recently created two 'lanes' of launch competitions. Lane 1 allows new entrants to bid on individual contracts to launch satellites that are smaller and not as vital; Lane 2 would be reserved for more powerful and proven rockets that would hoist satellites that cannot risk failure. SpaceX, however, has continued to dominate those missions. Its Falcon 9 rocket launches at an unprecedented cadence, while those of its competitors, including the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan, Blue Origin's New Glenn and RocketLab's Neutron, are still largely unproven. New Glenn has launched just once; Vulcan twice; Neutron not at all. And even before Musk's social media posting, the Pentagon publicly expressed worry about the pace of Vulcan's development even though it has won certification to fly national security missions. In a statement to the House Armed Services Committee last month, U.S. Space Force Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy said that contractors like ULA must 'establish a culture of accountability, and repair trust deficit to prove to the [Service Acquisition Executive for Space] that they are adopting the acquisition principles necessary to deliver capabilities at speed, on cost and on schedule.' From a legal and practical standpoint, the threats by the president and Musk would be difficult to carry out, said procurement specialists. If either the government or the company opted out, they would face major financial penalties, government procurement experts said. And if the contractor pulled out, it could affect its ability to win future contracts. Still, some had warned about Musk's foray into politics and the consequences for his companies. In an interview last year, Peter Beck, the CEO of RocketLab, which is seeking to compete for national security launch contracts, predicted that Musk's acquisition of Twitter, now X, and time at Trump's side could end up hurting his businesses. 'It certainly makes people uncomfortable,' he said at the time. 'At the end of the day, if you're delivering important national security missions, the buck stops with the CEO.' Related Content To save rhinos, conservationists are removing their horns Donald Trump and the art of the Oval Office confrontation Some advice from LGBTQ elders as WorldPride kicks off amid fears
CBS News
30 minutes ago
- CBS News
Video captures moment bottlenose dolphin calf born at Brookfield Zoo Chicago
The Brookfield Zoo welcomed its newest addition as a bottlenose dolphin calf was born overnight. According to the zoo, this is the first birth for the species, also known as Tursiops truncatus, since 2014. A video captured the moment when proud mother Allie, 38, gave birth to the calf just before 12:30 a.m. Saturday. She first showed signs of labor Friday morning as her body temperature dropped, indicating that her body was preparing itself for birth. At about 11 p.m., the calf's tail was seen. About an hour and 22 minutes later, the calf was born and kicked up to the water's surface for its first breath with Allie and her experienced dolphin mother, Tapeko, accompanying her. Tapeko accompanied Allie during the birth. Veterinarians at the zoo estimate the calf is between 33 and 37 pounds and 115-120 centimeters in length. Experts noted that no hands-on assistance was needed as Allie was immediately attentive to the calf. The zoo said its animal care and veterinary teams are monitoring Allie and the calf around the clock for developmental milestones, and that both appear to be healthy. Dr. Sathya Chinnadurai, Brookfield Zoo Chicago's senior vice president of animal health, welfare, and science, said the first 30 days are critical for the mom and calf. "We're closely monitoring behaviors and milestones to gauge the calf's progress, like its first breath of air, bonding with its mother, growth, and an increase in nursing efficiency," he said. According to the zoo, nearly one-third of marine mammals face the threat of extinction, and said it's at the forefront of global efforts to protect the species.
Forbes
38 minutes ago
- Forbes
How CPAs Should Speak To Clients As Crypto Adoption Accelerates
CPAs need to be educated on crypto to better advise clients CPAs have been discussing crypto for years, but given the rapidly (and positively) changing regulatory and policy environment it seems a good time to revisit what might sound like a straight-forward question; how should CPAs approach clients about cryptoassets? While in the past CPAs could have reasonably advised clients to minimize exposure to crypto since the regulatory environment was so uncertain, bankruptcies such as FTX dominated the headlines, and price volatility seemed ingrained into the asset class. Over the last 12-18 months, however, those narratives have changed significantly, with several developments making the crypto conversation between advisors and clients much more nuanced. Positive momentum on the legislative front at the federal and numerous state levels, the proliferation of spot crypto ETFs, the relaxation of previous strict language around including crypto into 401 (k) plans, the comprehensive repayment plans announced by the FTX estate, and the successful IPO of major stablecoin issuer Circle have all contributed to a more optimistic for crypto as 2025 continues to roll forward. Despite these developments, including the actions taken by the OCC and FDIC to allow more institutions to engage with crypto operations, the tax and accounting outlook for crypto has yet to significantly shift. Let's take a look at a few things CPAs need to keep in mind when discussing crypto with clients as positive momentum continues to accelerate. Given the nearly continuous flow of positive headlines around cryptoassets and the increased frequency with which investors of all sizes are allocating funds to said assets CPAs might very well be speaking with clients who fear missing out on these returns. That said, the investing adage that past success does not indicate future performance holds equally as true for crypto as any other asset class. For example, bitcoin has traded as low as $70,000 in 2025 prior to rebounding back about $100,000 beginning in May 2025; volatility remains an embedded part of the crypto ecosystem. For CPA clients seeking to integrate cryptoassets as part of a treasury allocation, accepting cryptoassets for payment purposes, or seeking to advise external clients whether crypto is a good fit for operations the pressure to invest in crypto can be significant. A responsibility of CPAs across the board is to make sure that any and all clients interested in crypto are only investing in these assets if the assets are well understood, and are a good fit for the business model of the firm. Despite the positive changes that have permeated into the cryptoasset sector the tax ramifications of these the fact remains that taxes are an obstacle to wider utilization of crypto for business purposes. Virtually every single transaction, transformation, or exchange that involves cryptoassets will create a tax reporting and potential tax payment obligation, and this has not changed even as the usage and adoption of crypto continues to accelerate. This is especially true for individuals that engage in higher volume trading or business activities, as several changes in particular will impact businesses using crypto. Specifically, changes that are related to IRS code section 6045 and 6050I, including the pivot to a universal wallet tracking methodology, are set to complicate the accounting for crypto transactions and gains. With further changes coming to the marketplace beginning January 2026, and while DeFi broker regulations (with an effective date in 2027) have been sidelined for now, the tax conversation around crypto is far from over. CPAs are already trusted as business and tax advisors, and especially as it is connected to crypto the value that can be added to a client via improved tax information is difficult to overstate. An often repeated issue and statement that can arise with the onboarding of cryptoassets is the perception that internal controls are less important since underlying blockchains are usually perceived as immutable and unhackable. Even if the blockchain itself has proven itself resilient and impervious to hacking attempts the multitude of hacks and data breaches that have occurred in the cryptoasset sector should serve as a reminder that internal controls are always important. Specifically the recent data breach at Coinbase should be illustrative to potential users and investors in crypto; even one of the most highlight regulated and well regarded institutions in the crypto sector suffered a data breach due to social engineering attacks on certain employees. For smaller institutions or entrepreneurs looking to gain exposure to crypto the importance of establishing and improving internal controls around cryptoassets and crypto policies should be an imperative. CPAs are well versed in assisting clients in the establishment and improvement of controls and control frameworks, and the importance of controls around crypto is no different. Crypto continues to make inroads across the economic board, and CPAs need to be well-prepared to discuss these issues with clients now and going forward.
