A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 29 Starlink satellites from Florida on Nov. 10, 2025. (Image credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX will launch the first mission of 2026 tonight (Jan. 2), and you can watch the action live.

A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California tonight at 9:09 p.m. EST (6:09 p.m. local California time; 0209 GMT on Jan. 3), carrying an Italian Earth-observing satellite to orbit.

Tonight's launch will send a COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation satellite to low Earth orbit for the Italian Space Agency and the Italian Ministry of Defence. The spacecraft will study Earth using synthetic aperture radar (SAR), gathering data at all times of day and in all weather conditions from an altitude of 385 miles (620 kilometers).

COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation is a two-satellite network designed to "monitor the Earth for the sake of emergency prevention, strategy, scientific and commercial purposes, providing data on a global scale to support a variety of applications," according to a European Space Agency explainer.

Among those applications are "risk management, cartography, forest & environment protection, natural resources exploration, land management, defense and security, maritime surveillance, food & agriculture management," the explainer adds.

Two COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation satellites have launched to date — one in December 2019 atop a Soyuz rocket and another in January 2022 on a Falcon 9.

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The liftoff will be the first of 2026 not just for SpaceX but for the global launch community.

It's no surprise that SpaceX is breaking in the year. Elon Musk's company launched a whopping 165 orbital missions in 2025 — far more than any other entity, either commercial or governmental. That was also a record for SpaceX, which the company may aim to break again this year.

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

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