Dreamy scene over the Indian River Lagoon Tuesday morning as SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Bandwagon 5 mission. It launched at 7:04am (ET), 31-mins into the launch window, just 22-mins before sunrise, so it wasn't as dramatic as the last space jelly-fest, but it was still a pretty view. Details: ISO100, f/22 and 199-secs with a @CanonUSA R5mii & EF16-35mm with a 6-stop ND filter. (I was running a second camera without the filter and it's entirely blown out.) – at Palm Shores, FL

At 7:04am (ET) Tuesday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket and the Bandwagon 5 mission. Downrange space jellyfish = confirmed. Not as dramatic as if it had gone earlier in the launch window, but still very, very cool. – at Melbourne, FL

At 6:33 a.m. (ET) Tuesday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket sending a Cargo Dragon full of supplies to the International Space Station, seen here in a wide view over the Banana River from Merritt Island, FL. Launch, landing, jellyfish, boostback: this launch had it all, including special guest appearance by the ISS. (single, 426-sec exposure)

Fire in the sky: At 6:33 a.m. (ET) Tuesday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket sending a Cargo Dragon full of supplies to the International Space Station. This is after stage separation as the booster (top) heads back to land, and the 2nd stage (bottom) heads to space. – at Merritt Island, FL

Space X Falcon Heavy / NROL-97 passing by the Moon Thursday night.

At 11:54 p.m. (ET) Thursday, SpaceX launched a Falcon Heavy and the NROL-97 mission. ~8 mins later, 2 of the boosters returned to CCSFS. This was the view from Titusville with special guest, the Moon. (single 564-sec exposure)

SpaceX Falcon Heavy pumping out ~5 million pounds of thrust passes by the Moon as the NROL-97 mission took flight Thursday night. – at Titusville, FL

At 2:49 p.m. (ET) Sunday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket sending the O3b mPower 11, 12 & 13 mission to orbit, seen here from KARS Park on Merritt Island. Weather forecast was 50% favorable; it turned out to be a beautiful (albeit hot) day for a launch. – at Merritt Island, FL

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Sunday morning view of LC-39A and the SpaceX Falcon Heavy / Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope ~40-mins before launch.

At 7:25 a.m. (ET) Sunday, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope went to space atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Some views from the NASA Press Site:

A Kalitta Air Boeing 747-4B5F freighter (N706CK), flight CKS241, Anchorage to Miami, crossed the Moon over the Space Coast @ 36,075 ft & 504 kts, just as Earth's shadow started to take its first bite Thursday night. This was 10:41 PM EDT, about nine minutes after the partial phase of tonight's deep partial lunar eclipse began. If you look closely at the lower left limb, you can already see the umbra starting to darken the disk. There's a lot more eclipse left to see tonight; the shadow is already well advanced, and it keeps deepening until greatest eclipse at 12:12 AM EDT, when about 96% of the Moon will sit inside Earth's umbra. That's as dramatic as lunar eclipses get without going fully total, the deepest one anywhere in the world since September 2024, and nothing else will top it until 2028. The partial phase wraps up around 1:51 AM EDT if you want to stay up for the whole thing. 📷:me, flight data: @flightradar24 – at Melbourne, FL

I went out hoping for a "space jellyfish," and instead got the "end of an era." Regular Falcon 9 Starlink launches had become routine on the Space Coast, going up every few days. Then, a few months ago, things began to shift. A droneship moved to the Pacific. LZ-1 closed. The crew access arm came off LC-39A. The cadence slowed. After the Tuesday morning Starlink 10-49 launch, SpaceX Vice President of Launch Kiko Dontchev confirmed it: this mission was SpaceX's final planned Falcon 9 Starlink launch from Florida. After roughly 260 Starlink missions from the Cape over the past seven years, future Starlink launches from Florida are expected to transition to Starship. Falcon 9 will continue flying Starlink missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Falcon 9 isn't leaving the Cape. It will keep flying NASA, commercial, and national security missions from here. It's the dedicated Starlink flights that are ending. They ended on a high note. Booster B1067 flew for a record 37th time, the first in the fleet to reach that mark, on what was also the 100th Falcon 9 launch of 2026. B1067 debuted in June 2021 on CRS-22 and carried the Crew-3 and Crew-4 astronauts before becoming a Starlink workhorse. This view of the 5:33 a.m. EDT launch combines the 447-second exposure I posted right after launch with a second frame captured immediately after, adjusted to bring out the downrange "space jellyfish," which was better seen much farther up the eastern seaboard. That second 3.2-second exposure contains the wide "space jellyfish" and supplied the sky for the "starry sky" version. Congratulations to SpaceX and the teams on the ground. I'll miss the rhythm of these launches. But 39A is being rebuilt for something much bigger, and I'm looking forward to photographing it. TL;DR: I'll be getting more sleep for a while. – at Cocoa Beach, FL

8/19/2015 (aka 11 years ago): Media was invited to tour Mobile Launcher 1 as it was being retrofitted to accommodate SLS. Since then, ML-1 has been used to successfully launch two Artemis missions. (📷: me, @WeReportSpace)

Globalstar / SpaceX Falcon 9 nebula

SpaceX put on a Saturday night light and sound show for the Space Coast as a Falcon 9 rocket carried the Globalstar 2-R Launch 1 mission to orbit. ~8-mins later, the 1st stage booster returned to LZ-40 to be flown again. (468-sec exposure from Titusville) – at Titusville, FL

Hazy, still beautiful: Many were out for the early Wednesday morning SpaceX Bluebird 11-13 Falcon 9 launch, seen here from Cocoa Beach. This was the 30th flight for booster B1077. Bonus: A prominent light pillar was very visible as the rocket climbed skyward. – at Cocoa Beach, FL

Tuesday, 5:15 p.m. (ET): SpaceX launches a Falcon 9 rocket and the MRV-1 mission for Northrop Grumman / SpaceLogistics. This was the view from a busy Cocoa Beach. – at Cocoa Beach, FL

OTD July 18, 2016, ten years ago: a Falcon 9 sent Dragon to the ISS on CRS-9. Liftoff, and a single long exposure catching the whole flight, ascent plus the first stage returning to LZ-1, only the 2nd RTLS, just months after SpaceX first stuck one. (📷:me)