Updated

Updated · NASA · Oct 13

SpaceX Launches 35th ISS Cargo Mission With 6,300 Pounds and Final 2 Solar Arrays

Updated

Updated · NASA · Oct 13

SpaceX Launches 35th ISS Cargo Mission With 6,300 Pounds and Final 2 Solar Arrays

Q: A glowing jellyfish cloud stretched from Florida to New York, but what secret payload was this SpaceX rocket actually carrying?

It was not a secret payload at all in this case. The Falcon 9 that created the widely seen “jellyfish cloud” was reported in related coverage as a routine SpaceX Starlink mission launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying a batch of Starlink internet satellites. The confusion comes from the spectacle itself: the glowing plume was visible across a huge stretch of the East Coast, from the Southeast into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, because the launch happened near dawn. At high altitude, the rocket’s exhaust expanded in thin air and caught sunlight before sunrise, producing the bright jellyfish-like shape. Some SpaceX launches do carry classified payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office or U.S. Space Force, and those missions are often described publicly only in limited terms. But the launch tied to the Atlanta sighting was identified in the supporting reports as a Florida Falcon 9 Starlink flight, not a covert national-security mission. So the answer is simple: the rocket was carrying Starlink satellites, not a secret payload.

3 articles · Updated · NASA · Oct 13

A Falcon 9 lifted off at 6:33 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral, sending Dragon toward the International Space Station with more than 6,300 pounds of supplies and hardware.
Dragon is due to dock autonomously at 11 a.m. Thursday at Harmony’s space-facing port, delivering the final pair of roll-out solar arrays plus science payloads.
The two arrays will complete the station’s power upgrade, increasing electricity for research, operations and its eventual controlled deorbit; astronauts plan installation spacewalks later this fall.
Research aboard this flight includes artificial retina manufacturing hardware, 3D heart tissue models, new glass-formation materials and brain organoids aimed at diseases including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Dragon is scheduled to stay until mid-November, then return time-critical research and cargo to Earth with a splashdown off California.