Southern California Warned Residents to Stay Indoors

Published: 24 Jul 2025

Author: Precedence Research

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Officials warned residents in California’s Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties to witness one or more sonic booms after eight minutes of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch. As the rocket makes its first stage of high-speed return to Earth and attempts its landing at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 4 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, loud sounds similar to thunder are expected. Officials have confirmed that booms are harmless and are a byproduct of SpaceX’s innovative reusable rocket technology. The past launch also witnessed the same public alerts to avoid sonic booms. This mission highlights another new understanding about the space ecosystem that surrounds the Earth. After recovering from the booster success, SpaceX is expected to make sonic booms a routine part of discovery.

NASA and SpaceX show live coverage of the launch event on their respective websites and social media accounts. The authorities will also show real-time updates and reminders to residents in affected areas.

Understanding Why Sonic Booms Occur

When a vehicle travels faster than the speed of sound, it creates waves that reach the ground as a loud and abrupt sound, which is called a sonic boom. The Falcon 9 boosters get separated from the upper stage right after liftoff and perform a controlled descent back to our planet. While slowing down its speed and launching vertically at Space Launching Zone 4, its brakes break the sound barrier, resulting in sonic booms. The booms can produce at every intensity according to flight trajectory and weather conditions.

About NASA’s TRACERS

SpaceX was planned to launch NASA’s TRACERS mission aboard Falcon 9 from Vandenberg. The launch was scheduled for 11:13 a.m. PDT to carry NASA’s TRACERS mission and further three additions of payloads into orbit during a 57-minute launch window. TRACERS (Tandem Reconnection and Cusp Electrodynamic Reconnaissance Satellites) was planned to be carried by Falcon 9. The TRACERS has been developed to study interactions between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere. The data will help scientists to understand space weather and its impacts on satellite communications and Earth’s atmosphere. The other three smaller research satellites were also planned to launch into orbit, along with TRACERS, by SpaceX.