It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Falcon 9.
SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Friday, Jan. 2, marking its first California mission of the year.
The two-stage, 230-foot rocket carried the CSG-3 Earth-observation satellite for the Italian Space Agency into low-Earth orbit. Originally scheduled for late December, the mission was delayed twice for additional ground system checks before lifting off at 7:09 p.m. MT.
SpaceX, the commercial spaceflight company founded in 2002 by billionaire Elon Musk, is headquartered at Starbase in South Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border. The site, where SpaceX has been conducting routine flight tests of its 400-foot megarocket Starship, was recently voted by residents to become its own city.
Watch SpaceX Falcon 9 launch
Watch the launch below:
USA Today contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: What’s in the sky tonight? SpaceX launches first rocket launch of 2026
Reporting by Aaron A. Bedoya, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
