This Visit South Padre Island promotional video encourages people to travel to the South Texas resort town to watch SpaceX Starship launches.
* SpaceX Starship rocket launch liftoff was at 7:23 pm ET Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, from South Texas.
* A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch was at 9:58 pm ET Oct. 13, 2025, from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
* Some rocket launches from Florida have been spotted as far as Georgia, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and New Jersey.
* SpaceX Starship rockets are assembled and launched from Starbase, Texas, near the US-Mexico border.
Twice was nice for Florida's Space Coast: The world's biggest rocket was seen in Florida not long after it launched from Texas. Less than three hours later, a rocket took off from Cape Canaveral and left a fiery orange streak in the sky.
SpaceX's launch vehicle Starship, which plays a pivotal role in billionaire Elon Musk's plan to send humans to the moon and Mars in the next few years, completed a flight test from Starbase, Texas. Starship got off the ground at 7:23 p.m. Oct. 13, from SpaceX's Starbase headquarters in South Texas, about 23 miles from Brownsville near the U.S.-Mexico border.
Coincidentally, as SpaceX was launching Starship at Starbase, formerly known as Boca Chica, Texas, the space agency had a planned Falcon 9 rocket launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Liftoff for that mission occurred at 9:58 p.m. Oct. 13.
The Starship, standing 403 feet tall when fully stacked, is regarded as the world's largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever developed. When fully integrated, the launch system is composed of a 232-foot Super Heavy rocket and the 171-foot upper stage Starship, the spacecraft where astronauts and cargo would ride.
When rockets launch from Florida, they lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center or nearby Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Depending on weather conditions and cloud cover, certain rocket launches from the Space Coast (Brevard County, an hour east of Orlando) can be visible as far south as Jacksonville and Daytona Beach and north of Vero Beach all the way to West Palm Beach. From Cape Canaveral, Florida, to West Palm Beach, it's about 150 miles.
Sometimes, the Florida rocket launches can even be seen out of state. Some examples include United Launch Alliance's Delta IV Heavy rocket launch and SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket being seen far beyond the launch pad in Florida. People have also reported seeing the "heavy" rockets in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, parts of Georgia or as far up North as New Jersey.
When there's a launch window in the middle of the night or early morning, with a southeast, east or northeast trajectory, there's an opportunity for unique photos. Specifically, the "streak" or contrail in the sky after liftoff.
Florida residents, USA TODAY Network journalists, report seeing SpaceX Starship
On Oct. 13, 2025, several Palm Beach County, Florida, residents spotted the SpaceX Starship rocket.
Maps show the distance from Starbase, Texas, to Boynton Beach, Florida, at 1,500 miles.
Marcy Davis of Boynton Beach told the Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Network, that she "thought it was a meteor."
Katy Soto said she saw the Starship rocket over the skies in Delray Beach.
Melissa Singer of suburban Boynton Beach reported seeing the rocket as well: "I was out walking and didn't know what I was seeing."
In addition, journalists from the USA TODAY Network-Florida reported seeing the world's largest rocket pass by the Sunshine State just after dusk.
Craig Bailey, an award-winning visuals journalist for FLORIDA TODAY, was covering the fourth attempt of a SpaceX-Amazon satellite mission that would blast off from Cape Canaveral late Monday when he spotted the Starship.
Coincidentally, as SpaceX was launching Starship at Starbase, Texas, the space agency had a planned Falcon 9 rocket launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Liftoff for that mission occurred at 9:58 p.m. Oct. 13.
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket had sent 24 Amazon satellites into low-earth orbit. That rocket launch, which had a northeast trajectory, was spotted in parts of Volusia County, Brevard County and Indian River County.
Bailey, who has covered hundreds of launches on the Space Coast during his career here, snapped some photos of the Starship rocket and its contrail.
And more than 160 miles south of Kennedy Space Center, James Coleman, community editor at the Palm Beach Post, shot video clips of the Starship rocket while attending a high school football game Monday night in Boynton Beach.
Maps show the distance from Starbase, Texas, to Boynton Beach, Florida, at 1,500 miles.
While watching rockets launch from the Sunshine State could be considered a "so Florida" thing, it's not often a rocket launch from elsewhere is seen in the Florida sky.
There are, however, exceptions.
Debris from a SpaceX Starship rocket launch explosion in March 2025 seen in West Palm Beach, Florida
On March 6, 2025, during a previous Starship rocket launch test flight from Starbase, flight operators lost contact with the 165-foot upper portion of the vehicle, which exploded less than 10 minutes into the flight, creating debris visible from Florida to the Caribbean. Locally, pieces of the uncrewed Starship rocket were seen streaking across the sky in West Palm Beach, Florida.
In a report released May 22 to the Federal Aviation Administration, SpaceX said mission operators noticed a "flash" close to the bottom section of Starship about five-and-a-half minutes into the vehicle's ascent burn, followed by what SpaceX called "an energetic event" that led to the loss of one of its Raptor engines.
Within about two minutes, the remaining five of the vehicle's six Raptor engines also subsequently shut down, causing the vehicle to veer out of control. This led to the communication breakdown and the vehicle to trigger its own self destruction, SpaceX concluded.
SpaceX identified "the most probable root cause" of the mishap as a hardware failure in one of the upper stage's Raptor engines "that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition."
Despite the failure of the Starship vehicle, the spacecraft's 232-foot "Super Heavy" rocket booster managed to navigate back to the launch pad during that March 6 flight test. The maneuver involved SpaceX catching the booster with giant mechanical arms known as chopsticks.
Photos of SpaceX Starship rocket launch from Starbase, Texas, in October 2025
Below are photos and video of the Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, SpaceX Starship rocket launch from Starbase, Texas, seen in Florida, and the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, almost three hours later.
SpaceX Starship rocket from Texas seen near NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida
SpaceX Starship rocket launch was seen near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida hours ahead of another SpaceX rocket launch, the Falcon 9 mission lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Videos of SpaceX Starship rocket that launched from Texas seen in Boynton Beach, Florida, sky
Video of SpaceX Starship rocket that launched from Texas seen in Delray Beach, Florida, sky
What a rocket launch looks like from West Palm Beach, Palm Beach County, Florida
Sangalang is a lead digital producer for USA TODAY Network. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @byjensangalang. Support local journalism. Consider subscribing to a Florida newspaper.