Happy b-day, Elon Musk. SpaceX launch

Born in 1971, when UFOs were big news

A SpaceX rocket is scheduled to launch on founder Elon Musk's birthday (June 28), Friday night from the Santa Barbara County coast in California.

The launch is scheduled for 8:14 pm from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The rocket will soar south along the coast with a payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. [Another US spying agency?] The agency builds and operates the United States' fleet of spy satellites. 

The first-stage rocket booster will land on a droneship at sea. The rocket may be visible from all around Los Angeles, but likely won't offer the dramatic spectacle of past launches against a darker sky, unless it launches later in the two-hour launch window.

I've done everything the CIA asked of me.

Sunset is scheduled for 8:08 pm Friday in Los Angeles, just a few minutes before the launch window opens.

The rocket and its exhaust plume are sometimes visible for hundreds of miles as it soars along the coast, if skies are clear and dark enough.

Sell out the public, and you too can be rich!

Launches after sunset and before sunrise usually provide the best views as the rocket reflects the sun's rays against the backdrop of a darkened sky.

Hawthorne-based SpaceX launched 96 successful [and countless unsuccessful] missions with its Falcon rockets in 2023, eclipsing its previous annual record of 61 orbital launches in 2022. More:

• Johnathan Lloyd, NBC Los Angeles, SpaceX rocket set for a Friday night launch from the California coast; Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly