{"id":286226,"date":"2026-02-16T04:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/286226\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T04:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T04:27:07","slug":"spacex-enthusiasts-gather-to-witness-valentines-day-rocket-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/286226\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Enthusiasts Gather to Witness Valentine&#8217;s Day Rocket Launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">SpaceX enthusiasts gathered in Santa Barbara County, California, to witness the launch of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spacex.com\/launches\/sl-17-13\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Falcon 9;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Falcon 9<\/a> from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Saturday, February 14.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The company launched 24 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spacex.com\/launches\/sl-17-13\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:said;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">said<\/a> \u201cthere was a possibility that residents of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties may have heard one or more sonic booms during the launch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Video taken by X user @tacticalkaoz3D shows the moment of the launch as the rocket blasted off the launch pad, leaving a large cloud of smoke. Credit: @tacticalkaoz3D via Storyful<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SpaceX enthusiasts gathered in Santa Barbara County, California, to witness the launch of the Falcon 9 from Vandenberg&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,41817,16937,147,392,17007],"class_list":{"0":"post-286226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-santa-barbara","12":"tag-santa-barbara-county","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-vandenberg-space-force-base"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}