I nearly deleted this from my card when I saw it on the camera. The lens was a 16mm/2.8, I hated the barrel distortion and the overall softness of the shot. Then I looked at it on a laptop, and hmmm, that is actually pretty sharp. You can see the first stage for quite a long way if you look full size.
My other shots from this launch are here: Blue Origin, New Glenn, January 16, 2025.
When Falcon 9 is on a night launch with RTLS, a gorgeous post-staging nebula is the result.
It is a shimmering, beautiful event in the sky, maybe 50% bigger than a full moon overhead.
On a bright and sunny but very breezy morning, SpaceX launched another tranche of Starlink Mini V2 satellites to orbit today from Space Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral. Launch was at 11:00 AM ET, and sixty-six minutes later at 12:06 PM ET, SpaceX declared the mission was a success when it announced a successful deployment of all 28 satellites included in the payload.
SpaceX added to its roster of Starlink satellites today when it launched the Starlink Group 10-17 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. Liftoff was at 1:39 PM ET and into partly cloudy skies on a day in the low 80s.
After multiple delays due to weather, the skies cooperated this evening for SpaceX, allowing the company to launch Falcon 9 and 24 Kuiper telecommunications satellites for Amazon. Liftoff was at 9:58 PM ET.
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SpaceX launched their 101st Falcon 9 mission of 2025 last night from Kennedy Space Center when the company sent the Boeing X-37 space plane to low Earth orbit on a classified mission. Liftoff was at 11:50 PM EDT, shortly after the opening of the launch window.
As Space Coast skies faded into night, United Launch Alliance launched their Vulcan-Centaur rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at 7:59 PM Eastern Time, carrying the classified USSF-106 mission for the U.S. Space Force. The evening launch, near the end of the one-hour window, was a successful return for the vehicle after its near-catastrophic solid rocket failure in its last launch in October, 2024.
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