RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — If you saw what looked like a bright light floating across the sky last night, you weren’t the only one.
According to Space X, on Saturday, Sept. 24 at 7:32 p.m., SpaceX launched 52 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the fourth launch and landing for this Falcon 9 first stage booster, which previously launched SES-22 and now three Starlink missions.
SpaceX, the famous spacecraft and satellite provider founded by Elon Musk, also confirmed the launch on Twitter.
The rocket was spotted along the East Coast including here in Central Virginia.
8News Chief Meteorologist John Bernier explained conditions were perfect for Virginian’s to observe the launch with their bare eyes because of the clear skies Saturday night.
“These launches need to be going to a high latitude,” said Bernier. “That means it’s going way up the Eastern Seaboard. The two that basically do that are flights to the International Space Station. They’re actually a little bit harder to see. And the StarLink satellites, those are set to deliver Internet to far rural areas of the world, which includes a lot of the northern latitudes. So most of the StarLink missions are going to be the ones that are going to be visible for us.”
To watch the launch and learn more, you can visit the SpaceX website.
