T’Naus Nieto
The Chronicle-News

It might have been a rocket launch say experts

In the late evening of March 4, residents of Trinidad, Raton, La Junta, and more took to social media with pictures and videos of strange lights in the sky, one moving across the skyline and discharging another light.

Leejay Lockhart of NASA Kennedy Space Center told The Chronicle-News, “The Multi-Mode Mission part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative launched on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on March 4 at approximately 2:05 p.m. PST.”

CubeSats are a class of research spacecraft called nanosatellites. According to NASA, they “provide a cost-effective platform for science investigations, new technology demonstrations and advanced mission concepts using constellations, (and) swarms disaggregated systems.”

“M3 (the CubeSat) and other payloads onboard the rideshare mission deployed from the second stage after launch,” Lockhart said. “However, that was not SpaceX’s only mission on March 4. I would advise you to attempt to reach out to SpaceX for confirmation if this imagery was related to their activities.”

SpaceX has not responded to multiple requests for comment or verification. However, they launched a Falcon 9 Rocket from Cape Canaveral with 23 Starlink satellites on March 4 at 6:56 p.m. EST. They said on Twitter, “Deployment of @Starlink satellites confirmed. This mission brings us above 10,000 operational space lasers for the constellation, which enable satellites to provide truly global coverage and serve those in the most remote locations on Earth.”

Micheal Brown shared a video of the lights over New Mexico on social media. He later commented, “So an extremely knowledgeable friend of mind confirmed it was the de-orbit/reentry of the Falcon 9 second stage booster from today’s Starlink launch. That was the second booster on its way to a watery grave in the Atlantic. Very cool!”

Dave Warner, Director of Education for the Colorado Springs Astronomical Society, told The Chronicle-News, “I think you’re on the right track. It was most likely the result of a rocket launch. There aren’t any astronomical events happening that would cause that.”

Former President of the Arkansas Valley Astronomical Society Jim Konowitz pointed to a website for space weather, which indicated natural phenomena, fly-bys, earth-to-sky calculus, cosmic rays, near-earth asteroids, and much more. The site indicated times and dates and didn’t show any moving beams of light naturally occurring that would be viewable from Earth from those locations around the time of the pictures and recordings.

When asked if the rocket launch would be viewable in southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico, Lockhart said, “Rocket launches, especially the second stage, can be visible at locations great distances away from the launch site, depending on numerous factors.”

Lockhart shared a link to NASA’s Artemis I visibility map from 2022, which demonstrated people’s ability to see a rocket from hundreds of miles away.

When asked if the CubeSats deployment was the second light discharge, Lockhart said, “CubeSats are small. M3 is only about the size of a loaf of bread, so seeing a CubeSat would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to spot from hundreds of miles away. However, something like a rocket’s second stage may be visible from the ground depending on several variables. Since this was a commercial rideshare mission, instead of a NASA mission, I do not have any insight into the launch and cannot speak to any specifics of its flight profile. So, unfortunately, I cannot give you a definitive answer. If what was in those photos was a second stage from a SpaceX Falcon 9, SpaceX [would need] to verify if any of their hardware was in the area, especially since they had multiple launches within a 24-hour period from March 3 to March 4.”