In its sixth mission for July and it’s thirty-third mission of the year, SpaceX launched 53 Starlink this morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 9:38 a.m. EDT (1338 GMT).
This was the eight flight of booster B1062.
Fifty-three years ago today, I saw Apollo 11 as she lifted off from Cape Kennedy and on her way to the moon.
The day was typical Florida morning coastal weather: hot, humid, with a bit of a sea breeze to only slightly temper the sun that bore its way through the sky and onto sizzling skin. The crowd around me flapped whatever papers or fans they had as they waited nervously for the launch, whose time was marked by a huge clock counting backwards.
My mother and I had been at Cape Kennedy since long before dawn, and we were seated among VIPs that included the vice president, movie stars, politicians and the well-to-do that NASA thought important. I was not important, I was just a lucky kid.
SpaceX launch its 25th resupply mission to the International Space Station Thursday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida about a Falcon 9 booster.
While waiting out a long hold due to lazy thunderstorms that were lingering too close to SLC-41 to safely launch United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V set to carry the US Space Force’s payload designated as USSF-12, I grabbed a few interesting shots from the nearby launch pads.
Three launch pads: on the left in the background, SpaceX is raising a launch tower for Starship. Center, Artemis-1 on its launch pad. Right, in the background, is where SpaceX launches its Falcon-class rockets, including astronauts into Earth orbit.
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 booster B1060 for a record-breaking 13th time Friday from Pad LC-39A from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:09 p.m. EDT (1609 GMT). It placed hauling 53 more Starlink internet satellites into orbit.
Through the years, I have photographed a lot of landscape, fashion, decaying architecture and sports professionally, and have enjoyed some decent success in each realm. No, I don’t view myself as any kind of Richard Avedon or Ansel Adams, but I do think a handful of my photos could be fairly termed “good.” I’ve enjoyed that journey and the experiences that went with it, and perhaps that is the most important thing.
Rocket launch photography is a whole other animal. To make a great launch shot, you need access (the closer the better), and the ability to deal with some very mixed conditions: the fire and flame is incredibly bright while the rest of the photo is either in normal light or at night. In the early days of digital cameras the available dynamic range was lacking, and film has its own personality — chrome (slide) film has maybe a +/- 2 stop latitude, and negative film perhaps as many as +/- 5 stops. That’s helpful, but color darkroom is a bear in its own right. That said, dodging and burning in is really hard for color.
Anyway, for the Space Shuttle Endeavour’s STS-123 launch in 2008, I set up with negative film and essentially ran a whole roll of film through in the first few seconds of launch. The initial shots were kind of…okay…but the third to last one was a real keeper.
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
Unless you work with the launch vehicles at the Cape directly, getting up close and personal with them really doesn’t happen often. I got lucky and was given a chance (with several other people) to visit the Space Shuttle Orbiter Processing Facility while Atlantis was there, courtesy of the NASA Public Affairs Office. That was in 2012 — ten years ago — and it was one of my favorite
Atlantis is in the Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Center, where it is a centerpiece of the many artifacts that are available for viewing. The first Orion capsule is there, as is SpaceX’s first Dragon capsule that went to the International Space Station, among many other articles.
Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner lifted off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:54 p.m. ET today in a picture perfect launch.
On May 18, 1969, at 11:49AM ET, Apollo 10 launched from LC-39B at Cape Kennedy. It was the second mission to the moon (Apollo 8 being the first), the fifth launch of a Saturn V, and the first Saturn V launched from Pad LC-39B — the same pad that now supports SLS / Artemis.
It was quite a busy day for everyone at Kennedy Space Center, and my Dad, Armand Boyer, on duty that day as the “Pad Chief” was one of them. He was responsible for fire and safety activities at the launch pad, but his job for the day didn’t end with the rocket launching. The aftermath of the rocket leaving the pad was incredible in its own right.
You must be logged in to post a comment.