SpaceX rocket launch seen over Carson City skies
Visible in Carson City and throughout Northern Nevada, at 7:21 p.m. Sunday night, SpaceX successfully launched the SAOCOM 1A satellite from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The satellite was deployed about 12 minutes after liftoff.
Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage returned to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Air Force Base. This was SpaceX’s first land landing on the West Coast. LZ-4 is built on the former site of Space Launch Complex 4W, from which Titan rockets were previously launched.
Carson City resident Jillian Higgins provided a photo and writes: "Saw this in the night sky Oct. 7, 2018 at about 7:30 p.m. in North Carson. It lasted about 5 minutes before fading into nothing. Had me curious if it was a slow moving shooting star, space junk, etc."
A reader who identified himself only as "PLB" wrote: "So I was sitting out tonight with my wife and friend and we looked up and saw in the sky what looked a bursting star, comet or maybe a government experiment. This happened around 7:30 p.m. and lasted about 7 minutes. Really bright light about star size."