SPACEX LAUNCHED 53 SATELLITES CAN BE SEEN IN ARIZONA SKIES

The SpaceX Launch of 53 satellites was visible across Phoenix metropolis and other Arizona towns on Thursday night.

SpaceX published on its website that it launched the Starlink satellites, which offer internet connectivity to rural and remote regions around the globe, at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

SpaceX confirmed that the launch took place at about 6:14 p.m.

See Video - Twitter

SpaceX's massive Falcon Heavy rocket breathed fire for the first time in over three years.

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy aced the "static test of fire" testing Pad 39A on NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, SpaceX announced via Twitter on Thursday night (October 27).

Static fires, during which the engines for the first stage of a rocket are briefly ignited while the vehicle is still grounded, are an everyday prelaunch test. The successful completion of this milestone will keep the Heavy on a path for the launch of the USSF-44 mission of the U.S. Space Force on Tuesday (November 1), SpaceX said in a tweet on Thursday.

SIMILAR:

SpaceX is gearing up for the first Falcon Heavy flight since the year 2019.

Fires of static on Falcon Heavy complete; targeting Tuesday, November 1, for the launch of USSF-44 operation at Launch Complex 39A in Florida on October 28, 2022.

This post did not specify the exact time of the launch on Tuesday, but various sources have set the time at 9:40 a.m. ET (1340 GMT) as T-0.

A Tuesday date is a slight shift for USSF-44. I was looking at a "no later than" date of October. 31.

USSF-44 is the fourth launch total of this Falcon Heavy, and it's the first since June 2019. The massive rocket has two spacecraft in orbit to Space Force. Space Force, which has not provided much information about the payloads or their intended use.

"This launch marks the culmination of years of work by an incredibly dedicated team of mission-oriented individuals from SpaceX and the U.S. Space Force and SpaceX," Brig. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the Space Force's program director for the assurance of space access, stated in an email statement released Thursday.

"The Falcon Heavy is an essential component of our overall lifting capability and we're thrilled to be able to launch," he added.

Thursday was an extremely busy day for SpaceX. Alongside SpaceX's Falcon Heavy static fire, SpaceX also took 53 of its Starlink internet satellites into orbit with one of its reliable Falcon 9 rockets.

The Starlink mission included the landing of Falcon 9's initial stage on an ocean vessel and was launched in the direction of Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The mission was SpaceX's 49th in orbit for 2022.