Falcon 9

The Falcon 9 launched a day before the company begins publicly trading on the Nasdaq. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California happened at 8:05:59 a.m. PDT (11:05:59 a.m. EDT / 1505:59 UTC).

The mission represents a rare public announcement of the launch of SpaceX’s Starshield satellites, a government variant of Starlink satellites. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 9:24:45 p.m. PDT on Saturday, June 6 (12:24:45 a.m. EDT / 0424:45 UTC on Sunday, June 7).