Southern California sky is lit up by Valentine's Day SpaceX launch

Jaclyn Cosgrove, Los Angeles Times on Feb 15, 2026

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Southern Californians out on Saturday night for Valentine's Day took a break from staring longingly into each other's eyes to gaze at something else: a SpaceX rocket blazing across the early evening Southern California sky.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Saturday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The rocket carried 24 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit, according to the company.

Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet provider, has launched about 11,000 Starlink broadband satellites into space since 2019, using its workhorse Falcon 9.

At 7:03 p.m., SpaceX posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that the 24 Starlink satellites had successfully been deployed.

SpaceX said on its launch page that residents in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties might experience one or more sonic booms during the launch, a phenomenon that has long upset residents and raised concerns about the booms' effect on nearby endangered species.

SpaceX has three more launches scheduled from Vandenberg this month, the next expected to take place Wednesday, according to the company's site.

This was the fourth SpaceX Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg this month.

The Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket. After its stage separation process Saturday night, the rocket's first stage will land on the "Of Course I Still Love You" drone ship, which will be stationed in the Pacific Ocean, according to the company.

"Love is in the air," one X user quipped, "and so is Falcon 9."

(Staff writer Laurence Darmiento contributed to this report.)