Does SpaceX make a boom sound on re-entry and why?

It doesn’t necessarily need to be Falcon. The Air Force has plenty of supersonic planes (or rather, planes that fly at a speed that causes sonic booms) that you might of heard. And being in the south, it could very well have been some plane going intercontinental.

Here in Atlanta, we get sonic booms every couple of years- not often, because they’re not supposed to go supersonic over the continental US- but it happens.

does the space craft pick up speed (breaking the sound barrier) after coming through to the earth’s atmosphere

Definitely not. In orbit it’s going 18,000 miles/hour. That’s the speed to stay in low-earth orbit without falling down. So it’s all deceleration from there until it hits 0/mph on splashdown.

Regarding “breaking the sound barrier” – there is not a single boom on crossing the threshold. A supersonic (faster than sound) vehicle creates a continuous shock wave. As it travels across land, everyone hears a momentary boom as the wave passes them.

Exactly like an ocean wave, where a single wave will hit people various distances from shore. Each experiences it as a momentary splash. But watching from the beach you would see it is a single wave rolling through people along its path.

A sonic boom is a wave rolling along a path below the supersonic craft.

Meteors going overhead make a boom. When I lived in Los Angeles, the Space Shuttle flying by on its way to Edwards Air Force Base sounded like a very big thunderclap.

@Call_Me_Jay ”. A supersonic (faster than sound) vehicle creates a continuous shock wave. As it travels across land, everyone hears a momentary boom as the wave passes them.”

Fantastic explanation. Consise and accurate!

Well, it certainly makes a boom on launch

Does it tend to sound like someone/something landing on the roof, when you’re in a house?

I grew up with planes going the speed of sound once in a while near our house living in the DC suburbs. People would complain about it. It was very rare.

@Call_Me_Jay, so maybe it was the SpaceX craft going the speed of sound over or near our houses if I understand your explanation. I’m about 75 miles from the coast.

A Falcon 9 blows past Mach 1 pretty quickly and continues to almost 4000 mph at 50 miles altitude. At that point, the first stage drops off and returns to Earth. Being that it is 50 miles up and already going well above the speed of sound, the first stage generates a sonic boom as it comes down. 50 miles is where there is just about 0 air but the boom is from going really fast through air at a lower altitude. They slow down a bit using 3 engines early in the descent but only enough to avoid major heating and turbulence effects. Air friction helps prevent speed from increasing too much after that. The first stage is still over Mach 1 before it gets close to the ground. That’s the boom that everyone can hear.

Do small aircraft make baby booms?

^It’s the speed, that causes the “boom.” I am tempted to say that the size of the object, has little to do with the sound.

I think it’s slowing down really fast upon reentry, the fire is from friction. Without propulsion, it should only lose speed. Obviously, there is a controlled decent. It looks really fake on TV, when it lands. It seems like the worst way to try to land. It works though.

Yes !
https://www.wfla.com/glance-at-the-galaxy/why-you-might-hear-a-loud-boom-in-florida-on-friday-morning/

^There we go.