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Liftoff! SpaceX launches a secret military payload into space from the Central Coast early Tuesday

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took a secret U.S. military payload into orbit from the Central Coast Tuesday.
SpaceX
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took a secret U.S. military payload into orbit from the Central Coast Tuesday.

Sonic boom heard in parts of the Tri-Counties.

Maybe it woke you up. SpaceX had an early morning launch on the Central Coast which rattled parts of the region with a sonic boom.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 5:19 a.m. Tuesday.

It carried a classified military payload. The NROL-149 mission was one in a series involving the launch of military reconnaissance satellites.

It was the 22nd flight for the reusable first stage booster used for the mission. It landed on a barge off the West Coast.

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.