SpaceX Reentry Tonight: Tracking Time, Live Stream & Best Viewing Spots

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA—Sky-watchers who stepped outside just after 10 p.m. Pacific Time were treated to a fiery streak—and a startling sonic boom—as SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule hit the upper atmosphere during its scheduled reentry tonight. The spacecraft, wrapping up the CRS-32 resupply mission to the International Space Station, blazed over the Pacific before splashing down off the coast near Oceanside at approximately 10:44 p.m. PT (1:44 a.m. ET) according to SpaceX’s mission control update. What residents saw • A brilliant plasma trail: The super-heated air around Dragon created a bright orange arc visible from Santa Barbara to San Diego. • A loud double boom: Traveling faster than the speed of sound, the capsule generated a pressure wave that rattled windows across Los Angeles and Orange counties, prompting a flood of social-media posts and 911 calls. • Quick disappearance: Within minutes, Dragon was already decelerating for its parachute-assisted splashdown, out of sight to anyone onshore. Mission highlights Dragon launched on April 23 atop a Falcon 9 and spent 32 days docked to the ISS, delivering 6,000 lbs of research and hardware and returning critical experiment samples slated for NASA labs. After undocking early Saturday, the capsule executed a deorbit burn, lining up a corridor that purposely routed the vehicle over sparsely populated ocean to minimize risk. Why the sonic boom? As Dragon plunged through 40–30 km altitude it remained supersonic, compressing air into shockwaves that reach the ground as a thunder-like clap. Because sound travels slower than the capsule, the boom trails the visible plasma by several seconds—a surprise for anyone who looked away too quickly. How to watch future reentries • Track @SpaceX on X for real-time splashdown coordinates and live-stream links. • Use marine-traffic and satellite-tracking apps to follow the recovery ship “Megan,” which relays capsule position. • For West Coast reentries, aim west toward the Pacific roughly 5–10 minutes before the scheduled splashdown time and scan for a fast-moving ember. What’s next for SpaceX While Dragon heads to Port of Los Angeles for off-loading, SpaceX engineers are already prepping the next ISS cargo flight and eyeing a mid-June Starlink launch from Vandenberg. Meanwhile, NASA will analyze tonight’s returned payloads—including a batch of microgravity semiconductor crystals and biological tissue cultures—critical data that couldn’t ride home on any vehicle but Dragon. Bottom line If you missed the show, don’t worry—SpaceX reentries are becoming increasingly common. Keep tonight’s splashdown window in mind, enable sky-alert notifications, and you could be among the next group of Californians to witness a spacecraft screaming home in real time.