A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the first "Twilight" rideshare mission on Sunday, (Jan. 11), from Vandenberg Space Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 4 East at 13:44 UTC, carrying  40 payloads into a dusk-dawn sun-synchronous orbit, a trajectory that allows satellites to maintain consistent lighting conditions for observations.

The Falcon 9’s first stage booster (B1097), completed its fifth flight and successfully landed back at Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg Space Force Base about 8.5 minutes after liftoff. This marked the 32nd landing at LZ-4 and the 557th booster landing in SpaceX’s history. The first stage had previously launched three batches of Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites and the Sentinel-6B spacecraft.

The 40 payloads were deployed over a 90-minute window, beginning about 61 minutes after liftoff and concluding more than 2.5 hours into the mission. The mission was named "Twilight" due to its deployment into a dusk-dawn sun-synchronous orbit, which straddles the terminator—the line between day and night on Earth—providing stable lighting conditions ideal for long-duration observations.

The primary payload was NASA’s Pandora exoplanet observatory, a 325-kilogram small satellite developed under NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers program and led from Goddard Space Flight Center, with mission operations based at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Pandora is equipped with a 0.45-meter (17-inch) Cassegrain telescope developed jointly by Corning Incorporated and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and its spacecraft bus was supplied by Blue Canyon Technologies.

The mission’s core objective is to disentangle exoplanet atmospheric signals from stellar variability by repeatedly observing starlight passing through planetary atmospheres during transits. It will conduct long-duration observations—approximately 24 hours per visit—on at least 20 known exoplanets, with some program materials suggesting up to 39 planets could be studied over a broader timeline.

Most of the more than 6,000 alien planets we know of have been discovered via the "transit method."

Transits also allow astronomers to characterize known exoplanets, especially their atmospheres. Different elements and molecules absorb light at specific wavelengths, so studying the spectrum of starlight that has passed through an atmosphere can reveal a great deal about that atmosphere's composition.

However, such work is complicated by stellar complexity. Star surfaces are not uniform; they often feature patches of varying brightness, like the sunspots that speckle our own star. Pandora will help astronomers account for such complexity, if all goes to plan.

Daniel Apai of the University of Arizona, a lead scientist on the Pandora team, described the mission as "a bold new chapter in exoplanet exploration," emphasizing its potential to refine techniques for detecting atmospheric signals and guide future searches for habitable worlds.

"Pandora aims to disentangle the star and planet spectra by monitoring the brightness of the exoplanet's host star in visible light while simultaneously collecting infrared data," NASA officials wrote in a mission description. "Together, these multiwavelength observations will provide constraints on the star's spot coverage to separate the star's spectrum from the planet's."

Tjhe satellite will focus on planets with atmospheres that are dominated by water or hydrogen, agency officials added. The mission includes a one-month commissioning phase followed by a one-year primary science campaign, with all data to be made publicly available.

The mission’s $20 million budget cap reflects its role as a cost-constrained, high-impact experiment designed to complement larger observatories like the Kepler and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The Twilight mission also carried a diverse array of secondary payloads. Among them were three NASA CubeSats: the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS), developed by Arizona State University, and the Black Hole Coded Aperture Telescope (BlackCAT), operated by researchers at Penn State University.

Additionally, the mission included 10 Aether spacecraft from Kepler Communications, which form part of a low Earth orbit optical data relay network. Capella Space contributed two advanced Acadia Earth-imaging radar satellites for high-resolution imaging. Exolaunch managed the deployment of 22 satellites, including Dcubed-1/Araqys-D1, which will demonstrate on-orbit 3D printing of a boom structure.

Other payloads included nine Lemur satellites from Spire Global for weather and maritime monitoring.

Sunday's mission is part of SpaceX’s broader rideshare program, distinct from its Transporter and Bandwagon series, and marks the first dedicated flight under the Twilight banner. To date, the company has launched 15 such flights in its Transporter series and four via Bandwagon.

American commentator Tucker Carlson argued that the real threats to American society are not Muslims, but rather platforms like OnlyFans, which he claimed are turning a "huge percentage" of American women into prostitutes, asserting that this is a greater danger than "radical Islam."

"The real threat is, I don't know, OnlyFans, Tinder. I mean, these are threats to the civilization," Carlson said. "And they're also just manifestations of deeper problems. It's not all OnlyFans' fault, but if you're turning 10 percent of the American female population into prostitutes, you need to be in jail right now....

"That's what an invading army does, that's what the Ottomans did... Are the Muslims coming in here and turning our daughters into prostitutes? No, OnlyFans is doing that."

Speaking to Christian influencer and podcaster Bryce Crawfor in a December interview published January 6, Carlson argued that the political debates in the U.S. often distract from deeper spiritual problems.

"To make it Republican versus Democrat is completely false, and it also ignores the deeper truth, which is our problems start within us," he said. "And I honestly think that one of the biggest problems — sorry to shock your viewers — is pornography on the internet."

Carlson noted the increasingly popular "cuckoldry" fetish, which involves a husband consensually observing his wife engaging in sexual activity with another man, as an especially pernicious perversion that effectively emasculates those who enjoy it while undermining marriage and civilization.

"I'm talking about a specific thing, which is 'Hey, sleep with my wife pornography,' which is pushed by the pornography companies," said Carlson, who added he believes porn sites are monitored by government intelligence agencies for blackmail purposes.

Noting that men are hard-wired to protect their wives from other men, and that every other institution emerges from that basic impulse, Carlson warned that chipping away at such an instinct endangers the entire culture.

"So if the point of pornography is to convince you it's OK for some random guy to sleep with your wife, and millions of American men believe that, or in their deepest secret thoughts are turned on by it, you've prepared the country to be taken over. Because you have made the men not men anymore."

Carlson went on to suggest self-destructive sexual depravity is a result of "the last 80 years of prosperity," which he said "has driven Americans and the West in general so far from what is fundamentally true."

"The most fundamental truth about marriage is, it's your job to make sure other men don't get to sleep with your wife. That's number one," he said. "And pornography, more than any other thing, I am convinced, has subverted that. And it should be banned immediately, and the people who put it on the internet should be in jail."

Carlson said cuckoldry is worse than straightforward adultery and engenders a weak, twisted mindset that has wide-ranging implications for the nation.

"What I'm talking about is something way darker, which is: wife sleeps with some random guy, a stranger, and husband approves. That is true subversion. Encouraging your wife to sleep with another man? You are emasculated on the deepest possible level, and elements of our society and particularly pornography do encourage that."

"And the rise in it is really noticeable, and occasionally, there will be a scandal about it; and it's really way deeper than sex. Nobody talks about it [...], but this is not private. This has an effect on the nation itself and on its men, who are supposed to be leading the nation, but aren't. And they're not leading their families, they're not leading the nation, and why is that? Well, this is one of the reasons."

Speaking about Islam, Carlson also noted that evangelical pastors who receive free trips to Israel are paid by the Israeli government to spread pro-Israel propaganda to their congregations, accusing them of distorting Christianity to justify violence against innocent people and hatred of Muslims, actions that contradict Christian values.

The American commentor criticized prominent neoconservative figures such as Senator Ted Cruz and pro-Israel zealot Mark Levin, suggesting they are part of a broader effort to align American Christianity with Israeli political interests, which he claims distorts the true message of Christianity.

Carlson's commentary comes amid growing concern among pro-Israel groups and evangelical leaders, including a delegation of 1,000 pastors and influencers who traveled to Israel in early 2026 to counter what they describe as an "ideological war" against Israel, particularly among younger Americans.

During a recent appearance on Tucker Carlson Show, American journalist and SiriusXM podcaster Megyn Kelly questioned the pro-Israel narratives she previously upheld during her career as a host on Fox News, saying she now believes much of the messaging she received was "spoon-fed" without room for dissent.

Kelly and commentator Tucker Carlson were referencing the ongoing feud between zealous pro-Israel Jewish commentators like Ben Shapiro and critics of U.S. policy on Israel, like commentator Candace Owens.

Shapiro and other pro-Israel voices have been viciously smearing Kelly and Carlson for not publicly denouncing Owens and for interviewing right-wing commentator Nick Fuentes respectively.

Kelly defended her continued associations with Carlson and Owens, asserting that friendships should not be subject to political litmus tests, and declared she would "rather die" than denounce them despite criticism from pro-Israel advocates.

Kelly said during the interview that while she supports Israel’s right to defend itself after October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, she criticizes what she sees as excessive censorship of critics and the dominance of pro-Israel narratives in conservative media. She expressed frustration with "Israel firsters" demanding total loyalty, suggesting that unwavering support for Israel has become a non-negotiable demand in some conservative factions.

The SiriusXM host defended Owens' investigative reporting, on Charlie Kirk’s murder, calling the criticism against her "BS" and refusing to condemn her, saying, "You don’t like her? Don’t click on her face." She also praised some of Fuentes' views, calling him "very smart," while condemnig his unsavory views.

In a prior interview with Vanity Fair, Kelly cargued that Shapiro and Bari Weiss are "making antisemites" by pushing for censorship of criticism of Israel, arguing that their actions are fracturing the conservative movement.

In a separate development, Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz addressed the Knesset recently, labeling both Carlson and Owens as "new enemies of Israel," accusing them of promotion conspiracy theories and antisemitic rhetoric.

“We are used to enemies from outside. We fight terror tunnels of Hamas. We fight the ballistic missiles of Iran. But today I look at the West, our greatest ally, and I see a new enemy rising from within,” Illouz said, who is originally from Canada, in an English address. “I am speaking of a poison being sold to the American people as patriotism. I’m speaking of the intellectual vandalism of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.”

Illouz’s statement in the Knesset reflects growing concern among Israeli political figures about the influence of right-wing American commentators who are critical of the U.S-Israel alliance The comments also come as the Republican party has been roiled in recent months by debates over U.S policy in the Middle East.

“They claim to fight the woke left. They are no different than the woke left,” Illouz claimed. “The radical left tears down the statues of Thomas Jefferson, Tucker Carlson tears down the legacy of Winston Churchill. The radical left says Western civilization is evil, Candace Owens says the roots of our faith are demonic. It is the same sickness.”

In November, Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Diaspora minister, echoed Illouz’s concerns in an interview with the New York Post, telling the outlet that he was “far more concerned about antisemitism on the right than on the left.”

“One of the worst moments was when a popular conservative broadcaster called one of the most vile Holocaust deniers in America ‘one of the most honest historians.’ That legitimizes hate — it normalizes it,” Chikli told the New York Post, appearing to refer to Carlson’s past praise of the Holocaust historian Darryl Cooper.

Chikli also warned against the rising influence of Fuentes and Cooper among young Americans.

“Antisemitism has become fashionable for Gen Z,” Chikli continued. “They listen to podcasts, not professors. When people like Nick Fuentes or Darryl Cooper are treated as thought leaders, that’s dangerous. These are neo-Nazis.”

Critics like Carlson and Owens have argued that Israel has become a liability, with the U.S. fighting the Jewish nation's wars in the Middle East, which has cost lives and trillions of dollars, and stokes anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world.

Many conservatives have also criticized brazen interference in American domestic policy by Israeli leaders.

Asked if he's worried about appearing to interfere with American politics, Illouz said, “Defending the alliance between America and Israel is not interfering,” and claimed that many conservatives "know that Candace and Tucker are a threat to America.”