A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 24 Starlink satellites soared into the blue sky over California on Saturday (Sept. 6) after emerging 20 seconds into its flight from a fog layer typical of its launch site.

The booster lifted off at 2:06 p.m. EDT (1806 GMT or 11:06 a.m. PDT local time) from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The blue sky gave way to the blackness of space about 8 minutes and 4o seconds after leaving the ground.

The 24 Starlink internet broadband satellites (Group 17-2) were on course to be deployed into low Earth orbit about 53 minutes later.

SDA-0A | SARah-2 | Transporter-11 | 16 Starlink missions

For the 20th time, the Falcon 9 rocket's first stage (booster 1075) successfully returned to a touchdown on its four landing legs atop a se

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