SpaceX launching 45 satellites to orbit early May 3: Watch it live

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 25 Starlink satellites from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on April 26, 2026. It was SpaceX's 50th launch of the year. (Image credit: SpaceX) SpaceX will launch 45 satellites to orbit from California early Sunday morning (May 3), and you can watch the action live.A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Sunday during a 37-minute window that opens at 2:59 a.m. EDT (0659 GMT; 11:59 p.m. PDT on May 2 California time).SpaceX calls the mission CAS500-2, after the primary payload going up — the CAS500-2 Earth-observation satellite, which was developed by the Korean Aerospace Research Institute.South Korea's CAS500 ("Compact Advanced Satellite 500") program aims to operate a total of five satellites in low Earth orbit. These spacecraft will gather data for a variety of purposes, from disaster monitoring to crop observation.Two of the satellites have reached orbit to date. CAS500-1 lifted off atop a Russian Soyuz rocket in March 2021, and a South Korean Nuri vehicle lofted CAS500-3 in November 2025.As its name suggests, CAS500-2 was supposed to be the second off the pad. It was booked to fly on a Soyuz in 2022, but Russia's