After a stormy evening across Florida’s Space Coast cleared out, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket in the early morning hours Saturday, May 10, generating long, low rumbles in the darkness as it roared past the shoreline along a southeasterly trajectory.
The 229-foot rocket lifted off at 2:28 a.m. from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, then deployed 28 Starlink broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit.
Hours before, the National Weather Service had issued flood advisories up until 8:45 p.m. Friday for portions of rain-socked North Brevard, where 2 to 3 inches of precipitation fell. As recently as 9:30 p.m., meteorologists had issued a special marine warning from the Brevard-Volusia county line — just north of the Cape — up to Flagler Beach, warning of steep waves and winds gusting greater than 34 knots.
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But in stark contrast to those squally conditions, Central Florida and Cape Canaveral were free of significant cloud cover ahead of the SpaceX launch, NWS radar indicated.
In an unusual mission update minutes after liftoff, SpaceX officials tweeted a video at 2:33 a.m. featuring the rocket’s fairing (nose cone) deployment high above Earth.
“Fairing deployment confirmed. Today’s mission marks our first 30th flight of a fairing half!” the tweet said.
The Falcon 9 first-stage booster notched its 11th flight, SpaceX reported, then landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. The booster previously launched Crew-8, Polaris Dawn, CRS-31, Astranis: From One to Many, IM-2 and five Starlink missions.
Less than five hours before that Florida liftoff, SpaceX crews in California launched another Falcon 9 at 8:19 p.m. EST Friday from Vandenberg Space Force Base. That West Coast mission lifted 26 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit.
SpaceX also targeting Sunday morning launch
Though SpaceX has yet to publicly confirm this upcoming mission, another 4½-hour Starlink launch window will open early Sunday morning at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, 22 hours after Saturday’s liftoff.
This Sunday launch window lasts from 12:24 a.m. to 4:55 a.m. at pad 39A. Mission: SpaceX will launch another payload of Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket into low-Earth orbit, according to a Federal Aviation Administration operations plan advisory.
FLORIDA TODAY Space Team live coverage will kick off about 90 minutes before liftoff at floridatoday.com/space — tune in.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX launches rocket May 10 on Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral