Falcon 9 Block 5
TopicTechnologyFalcon 9 Block 5
TopicTechnologyFalcon 9 Block 5 is SpaceX's reusable workhorse rocket, flown hundreds of times since 2018, whose plumes, fuel vents and Starlink trains are now a leading source of UFO reports.
Falcon 9 Block 5 is SpaceX's reusable workhorse rocket, flown hundreds of times since 2018, whose plumes, fuel vents and Starlink trains are now a leading source of UFO reports.
Falcon 9 Block 5 is the final version of SpaceX's partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket. First flown on May 11, 2018, it added uprated engines, titanium grid fins, a reusable heat shield, and retractable landing legs, and its first stage was designed to fly ten times with minimal maintenance. It has become the world's most-launched rocket of the decade and the backbone of SpaceX's Starlink satellite network.
Its flight record grew at an unprecedented pace. By October 2026 it had flown more than 630 missions with a single failure, and individual boosters had flown more than thirty times. SpaceX launched 165 Falcon 9 missions in 2025 alone, 123 of them carrying Starlink satellites, and the rocket also carries crews, cargo, national-security payloads, and commercial satellites from Florida and from Vandenberg in California.
That cadence has made it one of the most common sources of UFO reports. Launches shortly before sunrise or after sunset produce "space jellyfish," glowing, expanding plumes lit by sunlight high above observers who are already in darkness, which have prompted waves of reports from California to Florida. Second stages venting fuel before deorbit can trace luminous spirals; after a March 2025 national-security launch, a spiral over Europe drew more than 200 reports in Austria alone. Freshly deployed Starlink satellites travel in bright strings that triggered more than 150 UFO reports in the Netherlands after the first train in 2019. The Pentagon's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office has noted a growing share of reports tied to Starlink and attributed hundreds of resolved cases to satellite flaring.
The rocket's significance in the UAP record is as part of the new baseline against which unidentified sightings must be judged. The r/UFOs community posts daily lists of upcoming launches so members can check sightings against them, and researchers now treat launch schedules and satellite tracking as a first step in any analysis. As launch rates climb, distinguishing SpaceX hardware from genuinely unexplained objects has become a routine part of investigating the sky.
SpaceX Just Launched a Mysterious Classified Mission for the U.S. Space Force—Here’s What We Know
This week, SpaceX launched USSF-153, a classified U.S. Space Force mission carrying a mysterious payload into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Falcon 9 Block 5 | USSF-153 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-09-10 15:42 UTC / 2026-09-10 11:42 AM EDT Launch Pad: Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches. For more information about how to identify space launches and their effects, check out our Space Launches Wiki Page. Launch Example Image 1 - Launch Example Image 2
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-24 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-09-06 14:26 UTC / 2026-09-06 10:26 AM EDT Launch Pad: Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches. For more information about how to identify space launches and their effects, check out our Space Launches Wiki Page. Launch Example Image 1 - Launch Example Image 2
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-23 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-09-02 07:46 UTC / 2026-09-02 03:46 AM EDT Launch Pad: Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches. For more information about how to identify space launches and their effects, check out our Space Launches Wiki Page. Launch Example Image 1 - Launch Example Image 2
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-22 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-26 09:27 UTC / 2026-08-26 05:27 AM EDT Launch Pad: Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches. For more information about how to identify space launches and their effects, check out our Space Launches Wiki Page. Launch Example Image 1 - Launch Example Image 2
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Long March 6C | Unknown Payload Provider: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Launch Time: 2026-08-25 03:20 UTC / 2026-08-24 11:20 PM EDT Launch Pad: Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China Pad Country: CHN Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-49 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-25 05:49 UTC / 2026-08-25 01:49 AM EDT Launch Pad: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to...
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-39 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-21 15:14 UTC / 2026-08-21 11:14 AM EDT Launch Pad: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA Pad Country: USA Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 15-20 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-22 07:25 UTC / 2026-08-22 03:25 AM EDT Launch Pad: Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches. For more informatio...
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Zhuque-3 | Flight 2 Provider: LandSpace Launch Time: 2026-08-18 23:35 UTC / 2026-08-18 07:35 PM EDT Launch Pad: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China Pad Country: CHN Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-50 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-19 03:45 UTC / 2026-08-18 11:45 PM EDT Launch Pad: Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches. For...
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Falcon 9 Block 5 | USSF-366 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-15 21:54 UTC / 2026-08-15 05:54 PM EDT Launch Pad: Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA Pad Country: USA Falcon 9 Block 5 | Globalstar 2-R Mission 1 (x 9) Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-16 01:12 UTC / 2026-08-15 09:12 PM EDT Launch Pad: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA Pad Country: USA Long March 12 | Unknown Payload Provider: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation Launch...
Here are the launches scheduled for the next 24 hours: Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 10-19 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-11 14:54 UTC / 2026-08-11 10:54 AM EDT Launch Pad: Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA Pad Country: USA Falcon 9 Block 5 | Starlink Group 17-49 Provider: SpaceX Launch Time: 2026-08-12 04:46 UTC / 2026-08-12 12:46 AM EDT Launch Pad: Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA Pad Country: USA Visit RocketLaunch.Live to view the full schedule for future planned launches. For more informatio...