{"id":488881,"date":"2026-01-03T06:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/488881\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T06:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:59:11","slug":"look-up-spacex-launches-italian-satellite-for-1st-mission-of-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/488881\/","title":{"rendered":"Look up! SpaceX launches Italian satellite for 1st mission of 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\"><b>PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 Friday night brought a special sight in the sky for many Arizonans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Just after 7 p.m., people across the southwest saw a comet-like trail coming from a SpaceX rocket. The phenomenon is known as the \u201ctwilight effect,\u201d which occurs when the sun has recently set but the rocket continues to rise, illuminating its exhaust plume.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"The SpaceX rocket could be seen from Arizona.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/42C2Y6IFLVGOLMEYLIEEDLCNVQ.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>The SpaceX rocket could be seen from Arizona.(John)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">This Falcon 9 rocket was one of the company\u2019s COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation missions for the Italian Space Agency. It took off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">It is the 21st flight for the first stage booster, according to SpaceX.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">After the rocket splits off, the Falcon 9\u2019s first stage is expected to land on the Of Course I Still Love You droneship in the Pacific Ocean, as customary for these launches.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/page\/send-us-your-feedback\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/community\/user-content\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 Friday night brought a special sight in the sky for many Arizonans. Just after 7&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":488882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[5643,7182,7183,1434,21968,159,783,19096,67,132,68,220604],"class_list":{"0":"post-488881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-azfamily","10":"tag-phoenix-news","11":"tag-rocket","12":"tag-satellite","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-space","15":"tag-space-x","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-what-is-in-the-sky"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115829877284636970","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}