JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Dozens of viewers at News 6 partner WJXT’s station called their newsroom and sent emails about a loud boom they heard on Thursday night.
Dishes and windows rattling, brief boom, “sudden and powerful” was how one Jacksonville-area viewer described it. Some said it shook their houses.
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But what was it?
What you heard was a sonic boom from SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft heading for a splashdown.
The spacecraft had just completed SpaceX’s 23rd cargo resupply mission to the space station. The unmanned craft came through the atmosphere right over Jacksonville and splashed down just off the East Coast.
Dragon reenters Earth’s atmosphere before splashing down off the coast of Florida – completing the fifth reentry of a Dragon spacecraft this year pic.twitter.com/3NDt1MuVKK
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 1, 2021
According to NASA, the Falcon 9 generates three sonic booms during its descent. First with the merlin main engines, then with the black landing legs and finally the titanium grind finds, used the steer the rocket.
Here’s more from SpaceX:
Splashdown of Dragon confirmed, completing SpaceX’s 23rd cargo resupply mission to the @space_station!
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 1, 2021