Cloaked by cloud cover, a rumbling SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket promptly vanished from view from various vantage points across the Space Coast swiftly after liftoff Monday morning.

SpaceX’s Starlink 12-4 mission vaulted from Launch Complex 40 at 11:47 a.m. EST at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Monday’s Starlink liftoff took place about 8½ hours after Blue Origin crews scrubbed their early morning bid to launch the first New Glenn rocket on its historic maiden mission from nearby Launch Complex 36.

The SpaceX liftoff — which deployed 21 Starlink internet satellites into low-Earth orbit — clocked in as the fifth orbital rocket launch thus far during the 2025 calendar year from Florida’s Space Coast. Last year saw a new annual record of 93 launches established at the Cape.

Rocket photography: FLORIDA TODAY’s 2025 Space Launch Calendar is here

Unlike during Monday’s early morning New Glenn launch window, patches of significant cloud cover raced eastward across Central Florida and North Florida before the SpaceX liftoff, as seen in a National Weather Service radar loop from the Melbourne Orlando International Airport station.

The Starlink mission marked the Falcon 9 first-stage booster’s 15th flight. The booster previously launched Ax-2, Ax-3, CRS-30, SES 24, NG-21, Euclid and eight Starlink missions, SpaceX reported.

Following stage separation, the booster settled for a landing on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Grativas out in the Atlantic Ocean.

Next SpaceX launch coming up Wednesday

SpaceX will next launch Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost moon lander for NASA atop a Falcon 9 at 1:11 a.m. Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

“After the launch, Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander will spend approximately 45 days in transit to the Moon before landing on the lunar surface in early March. The lander will carry 10 NASA science investigations to further our understanding of the Moon’s environment and help prepare for future human missions to the lunar surface, as part of the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach,” a NASA media advisory said.

For the latest news and launch schedule from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and KSC, visit floridatoday.com/space.

Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@floridatoday.com. Twitter/X: @RickNeale1

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For most, Jeff Bezos is best known for being the founder of the successful e-commerce company Amazon.

In under three decades, the billionaire successfully transformed the once “famously unprofitable” business to one of a handful in the world to be valued at over $2 trillion.

During that time, however, Bezos has also shown an interest in the world beyond business.

Bezos has joined a number of other tech entrepreneurs to enter what has been dubbed as the billionaire space race.

Bezos previously said his aims were to “build a road to space so our kids and their kids can build the future.”

“We need to do that to solve the problems here on Earth,” he added.

Blue Origin, the aerospace technology company founded by Bezos, says it was founded “with a vision of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth.”

However, there are plenty of critics of Bezos’ endeavour, with some describing the billionaire space race as a ‘waste of money’ that would be better spent on the climate crisis.

Gainesville, Fla. – The SEC is currently one of the strongest conferences in college hoops. Nine teams within it are currently ranked in the AP Top 25, and four others have received votes to be a top 25 team. 

And, while the Florida Gators would’ve preferred an easy start to the year, they were handed an early test that consisted of the No. 1, No. 6 and a previously ranked top 25 team to begin their SEC slate, which they passed with flying colors. 

To open SEC play, Florida was tasked with traveling to Rupp Arena in Lexington, KY., to take on the No. 6 Kentucky Wildcats. Unfortunately, for Gators head coach Todd Golden, 2025 didn’t start how he had expected. His team stumbled and lost their first game of conference play, 106-100. 

A lot of the loss boils down to their poor defensive effort, especially defending the three-point line, and missed free throws. The Wildcats hit 14 triples – half of them coming from one player, Koby Brea – while the Gators missed 13 free throws. This can’t occur if they want to win the big games. 

Some players or teams could’ve let this loss demoralize them and let it bleed over into the next game or two. However, that didn’t happen for the Gators. They made sure to use the agony from this loss and channel it into the next game against Tennessee. 

Just a few days after this loss, they welcomed the number one team in the country to Gainesville and handed them one of the worst losses an AP No. 1 would have in a while. 

Florida dismantled Tennessee 73-43 behind Alijah Martin’s 18 points, but it was the defensive effort that would be talked about after the game. 

The Volunteers were held to just 21.4 percent from the field in this game, going 12-for-56 overall. Additionally, their offense was just 4-for-29 from deep. It also didn’t help that they missed 10 of their 25 free throws. 

This extremely ugly offensive display from the Volunteers led to Florida’s first regular-season win over an AP No. 1-ranked team in program history and the largest win over a No. 1-ranked team in the NCAA since 1968. 

“It’s hard to say when you host the No. 1 team in the country that you expect to win, but I think our program did going into this game tonight,” Golden said after the game. 

Even if you expect to win, to win like that after a heartbreaking loss in the previous game is wild. 

But while they may have had a night to celebrate this victory, that’s all they had because, in the SEC, games fly at you head-on one after the other and will not wait for you to be ready. 

Luckily for Golden, his guys were prepared for Arkansas. Albeit a scrappy one, the Gators clawed out a 71-63 win over the Razorbacks on Saturday. 

And, despite another poor outing from Walter Clayton Jr., it was sophomore Alex Condon and Martin who stepped up big time for the Gators in this one. Condon stuffed the stat sheet against the Razorbacks, ending with 12 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and three blocks. He also provided the kill shots against his opponents, dropping in a huge three-pointer and tough layup on back-to-back possessions heading into the final minutes of the game. 

So, despite many thinking that the Gators’ rather easy non-conference schedule would come back to bite them and cause them to falter in their opening SEC games, they came out on top and passed it with relative ease. 

Furthermore, being put to the test early and having two very difficult road games handed to them to begin 2025 will only benefit them as time goes on. Florida now has two straight home games and three of their next four games will be at home as well. 

Should they come out of this next stretch of games untouched, which is definitely within the realm of possibility, then they will be one of the clear favorites for the SEC.