Hilton Head Island, S.C. — Some Hilton Head Island-area residents saw a colorful, jellyfish-shaped orb in Lowcountry skies Tuesday morning after a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The launch came at 6:33 a.m. EDT Tuesday carrying an uncrewed Dragon spacecraft on a commercial resupply flight to the International Space Station. Residents near Harbour Town reported spotting the orb around 6:35 a.m. while watching the morning sky.
NASA said the Dragon lifted more than 6,300 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo as part of SpaceX’s commercial resupply services for the agency. The spacecraft is expected to dock at the station around 11 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 15, after about a 52-hour trip.
The rocket left Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, more than 300 miles south of Hilton Head. When SpaceX launches from the Cape, Beaufort County skies sometimes catch the glow, including a similar sighting on March 5.
Beaufort is among the oldest cities in South Carolina and anchors the Hilton Head Island–Bluffton–Beaufort metropolitan area, where coastal residents often share launch sightings across the county.
