On December 22nd 2017 citizens of L.A. got scared when they suddenly saw an unknown bright object in the sky.
A few people were aware of this event and prepared themselves to capture it from a good viewpoint.
It was actually the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket had 10 Iridium satellites on board, which were all successfully deployed in orbit as part of the Iridium® NEXT satellite constellation network. Originally intended for satellite telephony, the new Iridium generation can now also listen to the transmission of every aircraft in the world, giving a 100% picture of the realtime location of every airplane on the planet. Additionally it has the ability to monitor all ships in realtime, giving a 100% picture of every ship in the ocean. The SpaceX Iridium webcast shows the full launch and satellite deployment and explains the details of the “hosted payload” (at 9:00 min).
Elon Musk has done an amazing job, building rockets from scratch with his SpaceX team. These are extracts of an office tour he conducted in 2010.
Machining the rocket engines in house, Elon Musk said in 2010 that “…next year we will make more rocket engines than any country in the world”.