NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Doug Wheelock recently participated in testing a sub-scale mockup elevator for SpaceX’s Starship human landing system (HLS) at the company’s Hawthorne, California headquarters. Astronaut input is a vital component of spacecraft design, giving the people who will actually use the equipment a chance to test progress so far and to provide feedback from a crew perspective. This feedback often informs and evolves the design.
SpaceX launched their 29th Commercial Resupply Services mission on November 10, 2023, sending roughly 6,500 pounds of research gear, supplies and equipment to the International Space Station. The company launched a Falcon 9 from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, and the first stage booster landed a few miles south at LZ-1 approximately eight minutes later.
SpaceX launched a Cargo Dragon spacecraft packed with nearly 6,300 pounds of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station on March 14, 2023 at 8:30PM. The launch was from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Temperatures were cool with a brisk breeze on the Space Coast at liftoff. This often causes distortion in photographs where the subject is at a distance — for example, one of a rocket that is six miles away from the camera. The effect is called “heat shimmer” and occurs because at that distance the differences in the overall density of the air, which in turn affects the indices of refraction for light passing through it.
No matter, it was a flawless launch and one that was really fun to watch.
If you watched the launch of Artemis-1 on a livestream or on NASA TV on cable television, I can assure you it was ten times better to see it in person. Seeing the launch and being able to share it with like-minded people was an experience unto itself, and is something that anyone interested in spaceflight ought to have in their own right at least once.
For Artemis-1, my wife and I were at a viewing spot that pretty much only locals know about, and were closer than pretty much anyone except those on base. We were many miles away, mind you, NASA makes sure that the general public is far away enough to be safe from the rocket should things go catastrophically awry. Still, we were able to see Artemis sitting on its launch pad in the distance, shining like a beacon in the night. Close enough.
The weather was great — thin clouds, the evening typically cool (around 72ºF) for a fall evening in Florida, with light winds and not many biting bugs. There were about one hundred or so other people there, and we all gathered onto a fishing pier that extends out into the Banana River. It was a party-like atmosphere, with people having a good time and in a good mood.
Everyone was keeping up with the launch on Internet streams from their phones, with many tuned into coverage on YouTube from Spaceflight Now. Others had NASA’s stream up, but it was far less popular than SFN because SFN’s commentator was pretty quiet unless he was relaying an announcement. While NASA did a great job with their coverage, it seemed at times that they got carried away with cheerleading and forgot that this was a news story too — something that deserved as much information as possible for those following the events online.
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.
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.
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.
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