Watch SpaceX Launch Live: Falcon 9 Blasts Off Tonight—Stream Link, Mission Details & Viewing Tips

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 lit up the California coast Monday night, roaring off Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:36 p.m. PT (03:36 UTC Tuesday) with 26 more Starlink internet satellites. The glow from the rocket’s plume painted twilight hues across the West Coast sky, prompting thousands of onlookers—from Los Angeles to the Mojave High Desert—to pull out their phones and post the spectacle on social media. Key mission facts • Vehicle: Falcon 9 (booster B1093-10) • Payload: 26 Starlink V2 Mini satellites • Launch site: Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg SFB, California • Landing: “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship in the Pacific, roughly 8½ minutes after liftoff. The flight marked SpaceX’s 57th orbital mission of 2025 and the 10th reuse of this particular first-stage booster, continuing the company’s rapid-cadence campaign to grow its broadband megaconstellation. After stage separation, B1093 performed a precise entry burn, threaded the Pacific marine layer, and touched down on the droneship to loud cheers from SpaceX’s Hawthorne webcast—clearing the way for a possible 11th flight later this year. Why the launch matters Every new batch of satellites expands Starlink’s coverage and bandwidth, a critical step as the service pushes into mobility markets such as aviation, maritime, and remote IoT connectivity. According to SpaceX’s latest figures, more than 3.2 million customers in 70+ countries now rely on the network for high-speed internet, and today’s deployment helps relieve congestion over North America and the Pacific Rim. Night-sky phenomenon Southern Californians were treated to a comet-like swirl as residual exhaust crystals refracted sunlight high in the mesosphere. Such “space jellyfish” effects are most vivid during launches shortly after sunset or before sunrise, when the rocket is sunlit against a dark local sky—a timing sweet spot that photographers crave. How to watch the next Falcon 9 launch SpaceX’s public webcast typically goes live about 5 minutes before liftoff on X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube. For in-person viewing, the Hawk’s Nest at Vandenberg or coastal pullouts along Lompoc-Surf Beach provide clear lines of sight. Visitors should arrive early; traffic on CA-246 often backs up hours ahead of launch. Upcoming missions • June 20: Transporter-14 rideshare—carrying dozens of microsats and CubeSats for commercial, civil, and defense customers. • Late June: Another Starlink stack from Cape Canaveral, continuing an average tempo of one launch every three days this quarter. Bottom line Monday night’s flawless flight underscores SpaceX’s dominance in the global launch market, its maturing booster-reuse program, and the company’s sprint toward ubiquitous, low-latency internet. With each successful mission, the once-distant vision of a fully connected planet moves closer to reality.