It was a hot and windy day and smoke from a wildfire in the north bay ruined the sky for the night. I was out back watering plants around 7:30 when I look up and see a five-pronged triangle of light falling toward the ground. At first I thought it was a plane, or maybe a helicopter, whose light was being scattered by the smoke. But then I realized it was a rocket launch from Vandenburg. I called everyone outside to have a look. It seemed not to move though after a couple of minutes it appeared to slowly move toward the horizon -- in fact it was heading down range up into orbit. I waited to see if there would be a stage separation, and the engine light did cut out before it was beyond a neighbor's roof, but we did not see another light.
Clara took a picture:
It's great to have seen it since it was only yesterday I was describing to Val the two launches I had seen before, one from Pinnacles and another from CalStar last year. We were watching the BBC footage of the Apollo 11 launch so she was interested. After coming inside I checked my phone and found it was a SpaceX Falcon 9 launching an earth sciences satellite. The booster had been used before, and this was the first launch where the booster landed at Vandenberg after the launch. We watched the replay before the kids went to bed.
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