A Falcon 9 rocket carrying about 40 payloads, including NASA's Pandora exoplanet satellite, is scheduled to lift off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base during a 57-minute window that opens at 8:19 a.m. EST (1319 GMT and 5:19 a.m. local California time).

Want to see a rocket launch from California before Christmas? SpaceX is planning to launch its Falcon 9 again from the Vandenberg Space Force Base.

SpaceX says it's Dragon spacecraft at the International Space Station is ready to return its four Crew-11 astronauts home in an unprecedented medical evacuation on Jan. 14 and 15. "Dragon and Crew-11 are targeted t undock from the space station no earlier than Wednesday, January 14," SpaceX wrote in a mission update on X late yesterday.

SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket is poised for its first flight of 2026, and the schedule is finally starting to come into focus. The next mission is expected to debut a new generation of hardware while setting the tone for a year that could decide how quickly the vehicle moves from experimental prototype to workhorse launcher.