Falcon 9 flies Bandwagon-5 in the Tuesday pre-dawn — and the "space jellyfish" returns
From the Space digest for 2026-10-20
What happened: Falcon 9 launched the Bandwagon-5 rideshare with its 32 encapsulated payloads from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station early Tuesday, October 20, 2026, flying the 6:30 a.m. Eastern slot SpaceX set when it scrubbed Monday's attempt for unfavorable recovery weather. NASASpaceflight's live broadcast confirmed liftoff, and the Chicago Tribune reports the pre-dawn flight delivered another serving of the "space jellyfish" — the glowing exhaust-plume visual, with NASA's explanation of the same-day phenomenon. Talk of Titusville's flight report credits photographer Charles Boyer with the shot of booster B1085 falling away from the second stage, with a "small jellyfish" visible as the flight continued. The day's only report to name Starfall hardware on the mission comes from Shattered, which says SpaceX flew its Starfall reentry capsule a second time on Bandwagon-5 among the 32 payloads; no official SpaceX identification corroborates the claim, and Shattered's earlier Starfall coverage asserted more than the dated record supported, so it stands single-source.
What's genuinely new: This is a development of two threads already on the record — the Falcon 9 endgame storyline (Bandwagon-5 is the flying side of the line whose retail-level access freeze remains unconfirmed by any official SpaceX notice) and the Starfall thread (the unverified "secret return vehicle" rumor that rode through the scrub). The liftoff itself resolves the flight-watch carried through October 19–20; on Starfall, the window adds only that single reported claim, which remains unconfirmed.
Watch: Post-launch payload identification, including confirmation or denial of the reported Starfall second flight; whether an official SpaceX notice still lands on retail-level Transporter/Bandwagon access; and the next mission in that rideshare line.
Links: NSF — "LAUNCH!" Bandwagon-5 broadcast · Chicago Tribune — Space jellyfish makes tiny encore as weather clears for SpaceX launch · Shattered — SpaceX's 32-Payload Launch May Spark Space Jellyfish · Talk of Titusville — SpaceX Launches Bandwagon 5 Aboard Falcon 9 · Shattered — SpaceX Flies Starfall Capsule 2nd Time, 32 Payloads