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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket could be visible over Arizona: Where, when to look up
SpaceX launches have come roaring back to life in Southern California after more than a two-week break, giving space enthusiasts plenty of chances to once again catch a rocket soaring high above. The first of three upcoming SpaceX Starlink missions got off the ground on the night of Tuesday, July 15. Now, Elon Musk's commercial spaceflight company could soon get another of its Falcon 9 rockets off the ground from the Vandenberg Space Force Base to deploy more of the internet-beaming satellites. The launch site itself may be across state lines, but Arizonans could still have a chance to see the rocket itself soaring overheard. 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 for any updates on the rocket launch. Here's what to know about the launch from Southern California, as well as when and where to watch it in neighboring Arizona: California rocket launches: SpaceX rocket launches have increased in California, and not all residents are happy What time is the SpaceX rocket launch from California? The launch is being targeted for 8:51 p.m. PT Friday, July 18, according to a launch alert from the Vandenberg Space Force Base. If needed, additional launch opportunities are available starting at 9:26 p.m. PT Saturday, July 19. Where is the next rocket launch from California? The launch will take place from Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County, California. Most launches from Vandenberg fly at a south or southeast trajectory. What is the next mission launching from Vandenberg? The spaceflight will make use of the company's famous two-stage 230-foot Falcon 9 rocket, one of the world's most active, to deliver 24 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit. The altitude is low enough to allow for things like satellites to circle Earth fairly quickly. How to watch SpaceX Starlink launch livestream SpaceX will provide a webcast of the Starlink launch on its website beginning about five minutes before liftoff, along with updates on social media site X. California rocket launch could be visible in Arizona: Where to watch Because of Arizona's proximity to the launch site, there's a good chance people there can see the spacecraft streak across the sky, especially at night or very early morning. Here's a list of some possible viewing locations compiled by The Arizona Republic, a USA TODAY Network publication. Dobbins Lookout, South Mountain, 10919 S. Central Ave., Phoenix, Arizona Papago Park, 625 N. Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, Arizona Fountain Hills, a town in Maricopa County, Arizona, which in 2018 was designated a Dark Sky Community with little light pollution Superstition Mountains, located 40 miles from metro Phoenix in Arizona Cave Creek, a town in Maricopa County about 30 miles north of Fountain Hills, Arizona Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, 3400 Sky Harbor Blvd., Arizona, which has a parking garage that is popular for plane-watching Black Canyon City, an unincorporated community in Yavapai County, Arizona Any mountain park in Arizona , 14805 W. Vineyard Ave., Goodyear, Arizona , 2600 N. Watson Road, Buckeye, Arizona , 20304 W. White Tank Mountain Road, Waddell, Arizona , 6533 W. Phillips Road, Queen Creek, Arizona Monument Hill, a 150-foot slope on 115th Avenue, in Arizona What is SpaceX? 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 additionally benefits from billions of dollars in contracts from NASA and the Department of Defense by providing launch services for classified satellites and other payloads. What is Starlink? Owned by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Starlink is a constellation of more than 7,000 satellites that provide internet service to customers around the world. SpaceX has spent more than six years delivering the satellites to orbit with a regular cadence of rocket launches from both 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. This article has been updated to add new information. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket may be seen over Arizona: Where, when Solve the daily Crossword
The Hill
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Arizona Democrats vote to oust state party chair amid infighting
Arizona Democrats voted to oust their state party chair, Robert Branscomb II, during a special meeting on Wednesday, a major rebuke that comes as the party has been embroiled in infighting. Arizona Democratic state committee members notched the two-thirds majority threshold needed in order to formally remove Branscomb during a tense meeting plagued by technical difficulties, according to local media reports. Dissent over Branscomb and his leadership of the party had been bubbling up in the months leading up to the Wednesday meeting. Branscomb upset his party when he sent a note to state committee members in April, alleging that Arizona's Democratic senators, Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, were intimidating him over his pick for executive director. The note prompted both senators along with Gov. Katie Hobbs (D), Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) to declare that Branscomb had 'lost our trust.' Between the resignation of the party's former secretary, the suspension of a high-ranking state party official and a damning news from its treasurer that projected — at the current rate — the party would likely run out of money by the end of the year, the tensions only bubbled over. The issues coupled together prompted Democrats to launch their coordinate campaign efforts to help reelection Hobbs, Mayes and Fontes through the Navajo County Democratic Committee, working around the state party as an indication that the party had no confidence in the state apparatus. Branscomb, in an interview with The Arizona Republic in mid-May, acknowledged he could have some things differently, but he's also pressed for Democrats to 'allow me to get my footing.' He said he believes chairs before him weren't facing the same hurdles he's been contending with and argued that he wasn't left in a strong position to take over as the state party leader. The state party chair has continued to push back, telling the Republic in an interview this week 'They're weaponizing identity politics in this. From the beginning, what have I done wrong?' A group of Black leaders had thrown their weight behind him in amid the turmoil, expressing their confidence in Branscomb. Yet it's done little to quell frustrations within the party. The stakes of party revolt are high: Democrats are defending three key statewide office positions between Hobbs, Mayes and Fontes — and in a perennial battleground state, no less. One question lingering over the state party is how much of a role it will play in the 2026 midterms given Democrats have already moved their coordinate campaign to a county party.
USA Today
6 days ago
- Climate
- USA Today
The Grand Canyon fire exploded in size, catching officials off guard. Why?
When a lightning strike ignited a wildfire on the Grand Canyon's North Rim, fire officials allowed it to burn for several days as they set up containment lines and urged the public that it was not a threat. But then a dangerous shift in the weather occurred, turning the seemingly low-risk fire into a fast-moving blaze that jumped containment lines and torched dozens of buildings in the park over the weekend, including a historic lodge. What fueled the explosive growth of the Dragon Bravo Fire was a mix of gusty winds, dry air and above-normal heat – weather conditions experts described as atypical for this time of year, when monsoonal moisture typically tamps down wildfire risk across Arizona. 'It was a break in the monsoon pattern,' Robert Rickey, a science and operations officer with the National Weather Service, told The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network. 'Rather than having daily afternoon showers, we had a period of several days without that. Instead, we had extremely dry, warm conditions.' Since its rapid expansion over the weekend, the wildfire has torched over 14 square miles of land, making it one of the largest wildfires to break out in a national park since 2021. No one has been injured as the North Rim and nearby communities were evacuated late last week because of a separate fire. Officials also shut down the North Rim – which receives only 10% of all park visitors – for the rest of the year. In recent days, members of the state's congressional delegation and Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs criticized the National Park Service's decision to initially treat the fire as a controlled burn – a practice that's regularly employed to reduce wildfire risks and promote healthy plant growth. The park service has said the wildfire was "expertly handled," blaming "historic" winds for the blaze's explosive growth and highlighting the evacuation of hundreds of residents, tourists and park employees. More: The Dragon Bravo Fire was unremarkable as it burned slowly over days — then the winds came How the weather fueled the Grand Canyon wildfire After the fire started on July 4, the National Park Service decided to manage the blaze as a controlled burn to benefit the land. But by July 10, the threat of expansion set in as a dry trough of low pressure passed over northern Arizona, pushing out monsoon moisture and bringing in drier air and gusty winds. Relative humidity dropped into the single digits. The winds shifted, blowing 20 mph from the west and northwest, fanning the flames and driving them across the North Rim. Temperatures climbed to the upper 80s and low 90s, about 10 degrees above average for this time of year. On Friday, July 11, the fire expanded by more than eight times its size. The rapid growth continued Saturday night as peak winds around 40 mph pushed the flames to buildings and a row of cabins that firefighters had sought to protect. The combination of weather conditions is unusual during the region's monsoon season, which officially runs from June 15 to Sept. 30, as heavy moisture and thunderstorms drive up humidity levels and limit the risk of wildfires. "During the monsoon season, we usually have high pressure sitting in place so we're not often dealing with strong west or northwest wind events," Rickey said. "This pattern just happened to line up in a way that really fueled the fire.' Should fire officials have attacked the blaze sooner? The "contain/confine" strategy that the National Park Service employed in the initial days of the wildfire is not uncommon, especially in national forests, said Susan Prichard, a research scientist specializing in wildfire ecology and management at the University of Washington. Prichard said such a decision is reached through extensive calculation, with authorities employing risk models and simulations to analyze the potential fire spread. If it's considered low-risk, fire managers will let a wildfire burn so it can chip away at fire fuels and limit the danger of future blazes. On the Grand Canyon's North Rim, the method worked for several days until gusty winds combined with low humidity and high temperatures to set the stage for extreme fire growth. "I feel bad for the managers here, because unfortunately the winds were not as predictable as we wish and they got an outlier event," Prichard said. She added that research supports the use of "let-it-burn" practices but said the damaging wildfire and its handling should be investigated. "Fire is a blunt tool so everything is risky," she said. "But when there's an outcome that's so far from what was expected, we need to learn from it." As fire rages on, pressure mounts over federal wildfire response The Dragon Bravo Fire has continued to grow in recent days but fire officials are hopeful that thunderstorms this week will help tamp down the flames. Officials said over 350 emergency responders were working in shifts with hand crews and bulldozers, setting up containment lines as they seek to "hold the fire to as small a perimeter as possible" and protect other buildings on the North Rim. As of Wednesday, July 16, the fire remained at 0% containment. Meanwhile, both sides of the political aisle have demanded an investigation into the National Park Service's response to the fire. Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego in a joint letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum requested a probe of why the blaze was initially treated as a controlled burn. And Republican Reps. Eli Crane and Paul Gosar pledged support for an investigation into the agency's wildfire response. Their demands came after the state governor called on the federal government to look into the matter. "The destruction of the Grand Canyon Lodge was a tragedy and Arizonans deserve answers," Hobbs said. Contributing: Perry Vandell and Caitlin McGlade, Arizona Republic
New York Times
6 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Steve Benson, Provocative Editorial Cartoonist, Dies at 71
Steve Benson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for The Arizona Republic and a four-time finalist for the award, who used his razor-edged pen to mock an Arizona governor and fellow Mormon, leading to a lasting rift with the church authorities, died on July 8 in Gilbert, Ariz. He was 71. His wife, Claire Ferguson, said the death was from complications of a stroke in February 2024. He had been under hospice care at an assisted living center. Like most effective editorial cartoonists — whose ranks have been trimmed by the contracting newspaper industry — Mr. Benson used his unflinching opinions and a provocative drawing style to rile politicians and raise questions about moral and societal issues. In an interview in 2017 with KJZZ Radio in Phoenix, Mr. Benson said that 'the role of an editorial cartoonist is not really to give the bottom line on anything, because all we want to do is kick bottoms and, and if it incentivizes people to jump into the — into the riot — then that's great.' 'I don't aim to please,' he often said, as his mantra. 'I just aim.' In criticizing President Trump's insistence on extending barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018, Mr. Benson depicted President Ronald Reagan speaking before a wall topped by concertina wire and saying, 'My fellow Americans, don't build this wall.' It was a takeoff on Reagan's speech in front of the Berlin Wall in 1987, when he famously invoked the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in declaring, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!' In one of the 10 cartoons that earned Mr. Benson the 1993 Pulitzer in editorial cartooning, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir of Israel and Secretary of State James A. Baker III are standing beside a graveyard of Jews whose tombstones say they were killed by terrorists. Mr. Shamir asks, 'I suppose you're going to blame us for this growing Jewish settlement, too, Mr. Baker?' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Atlantic
15-07-2025
- Climate
- Atlantic
Photos: The Grand Canyon Burns
The Dragon Bravo wildfire in Arizona grew rapidly over the past weekend, destroying the historic Grand Canyon Lodge and dozens of other structures along the canyon's North Rim. July 15, 2025, 12:10 PM ET Michael Chow / The Arizona Republic / USA Today / Reuters The Dragon Bravo fire burns on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, as seen from the South Rim on July 14, 2025. Grand Canyon National Park / Getty In this handout image provided by Grand Canyon National Park, the Dragon Bravo fire is seen at Grand Canyon National Park on July 11, 2025. Due to increased fire activity, mandatory evacuation orders were issued earlier in the day for North Rim residents. Joelle Baird / Grand Canyon National Park / AP Smoke from wildfires settles in Grand Canyon National Park, as seen on July 11, 2025. National Park Service / AP This photo provided by the National Park Service shows firefighters working at the charred remains of a building along the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park on July 13, 2025. Joe Rondone / The Arizona Republic / USA Today / Reuters Smoke from the Dragon Bravo fire is viewed by visitors at the Mather Point Overlook on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on July 13, 2025. Smoke from the Dragon Bravo fire colors a setting sun for onlookers at Grandeur Point on July 14, 2025. Michael Chow / The Arizona Republic / USA Today / Reuters The Dragon Bravo fire burns on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, as seen from the South Rim on July 14, 2025. The Dragon Bravo fire burns on the North Rim, as seen from Grandeur Point on July 14, 2025. The Dragon Bravo fire burns on the North Rim, as seen from Mather Point on July 15, 2025. Michael Chow / The Arizona Republic / USA Today / Reuters A night view of the Dragon Bravo fire, burning on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on July 14, 2025. Alan Taylor is a senior editor at The Atlantic.
