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It's off! SpaceX completes early morning satellite launch from Central Coast

The view from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket talking off from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday morning.
SpaceX
The view from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket taking off from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday morning.

20 Starlink satellites are boosted into orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

SpaceX has successfully launched another batch of communications satellites from the Central Coast.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 20 Starlink satellites lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 1:21 a.m. Tuesday. The reusable first stage booster successfully landed on a barge off the West Coast. It was the 19th flight for the booster.

Because of low clouds and fog, the launch was obscured for much of the Tri-Counties.

The communications satellites are part of a global network providing internet and cell phone service to underserved parts of the world.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.