A Falcon 9 rocket’s first-stage booster made its 19th flight on Thursday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base, shaking the ground, rattling windows and startling unknowing residents.
After lifting off from Space Launch Complex-4 on the South Base at 8:11 p.m., the first-stage booster successfully returned to land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship in the Pacific Ocean about eight minutes later.
“Did anyone else feel that shake?” one resident asked on Facebook.
The louder-than-normal liftoff caught some residents by surprise, apparently unaware of the nation’s West Coast launch site.
“I just saw this in the sky over Solvang … anyone know what it was?” one person asked.
Others speculated that the mission lifted off from a different facility of Vandenberg, although it’s the same launch site that SpaceX has employed for six other launches so far in 2024 and many more previously.
Clear skies, rather than the pesky marine layer, greeted Thursday’s launch spectators — and listeners in the North County for the mission. Other launches have sounded a different story for South Coast residents, while those missions seemed quieter in the North County.
“It seems like there are multiple factors at play here,” Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Oxnard, said in explaining why the liftoff seemed louder for some areas.
“Typically, lighter winds are going to carry sound further because if the winds are stronger it tends to dissipate the sound,” said Dave Hovde, a meteorologist for KSBY-TV.
Wind gusts were logged at a meager 5 mph — odd for the usually blustery Vandenberg coastline.
“This is incredibly light. This is an ideal circumstance for sound to carry,” he said, adding that it was the perfect combination of the right temperature and light winds.
It was the second Falcon first-stage booster to log 19 missions. However, the one that claimed the milestone first toppled over on the droneship before returning to shore in Florida, destroying the component — and plans for future flights. SpaceX blamed rough seas and windy conditions for the untimely demise.
SpaceX recycles various components to trim the time between missions and reduce costs.
While the first-stage booster that crackled as it climbed away from the Central Coast has tallied a record-tying number of missions, a Merlin engine driving the rocket topped its eight other counterparts used Thursday night.
“One of the nine Merlin engines powering tonight’s first stage is our flight leader, powering its 22nd mission to Earth orbit,” SpaceX said after the liftoff and landing.
The Falcon rocket delivered 22 Starlink satellites into orbit with deployment taking place slightly more than an hour after liftoff. They joined thousands of others for the constellation to provide high-speed internet service to areas where the access isn’t reliable or available.
SpaceX, which intends to conduct missions roughly once a week in 2024 from Vandenberg, is just one of several firms and organizations that launch rockets and missiles from the base.