A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15, 2023 at 5:56 p.m. EST (2255 GMT). The rocket was carrying a classified U.S. Space Force communications satellite and five additional military payloads as a rideshare. The Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters returned to land at SpaceX’s landing zones a few miles away at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station about eight minutes after launch.
On a cool night with fog and a slight scent of nearby prescribed forest burns mixed together into a thin layer of smog on many Space Coast waterways, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station ten minutes before midnight on January 10th, 2023.
The commercial payload launch carried forty satellites for OneWeb for their commercial Internet service, nudging the company’s network closer to full operational capability. Eight minutes later, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster returned to Cape Canaveral for landing a few miles away from the launch site.
I’ve been playing around with making videos the past year or so, mainly as an aside to creating still photographs of launches around the Cape.
Honestly, results have been mixed: video requires a somewhat different skillset, even when you are using the same equipment, and it certainly requires your full attention to great anything close to what I’d label as “good.” As far as skills go, I am improving, but have a ways to go. I personally hate the sound of my own voice on a recording, but I need to get over that and start narrating my videos, and I also probably need to put myself on video as well to personalize the experience. I plan to do that with my next video and from there out.
Anyways, here’s my latest attempt at recording the event of a space launch from the viewpoint of being a visitor. I had tickets to the LC-39 gantry, which is the closest place the general public can get to a launch from SpaceX’s SLC-40 complex, and I made video from the gate to Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center onward.
On a hazy, warm morning, SpaceX got right back to work after the holidays by sending Falcon9 towards a southerly polar orbit from Cape Canaveral. This was the view looking southwards and into bright sunlight. Here are photos and a link to a video of the launch:
SpaceX launched 54 Starlink satellites this morning from Cape Canaveral, closing out the 2022 launch schedule for Florida. It was yet another picture-perfect launch.
Skies were clear enough this morning to where we could see the second stage for six-ish minutes. There’s a small gap between the end of the first stage’s powered ascent and the ignition of the second stage. My aim in this photo was to capture as much as possible of the second stage, and it succeeded from that perspective.
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.
The “naked eye” view that a regular launch viewer would see from the Banana River in Cape Canaveral, about 10 miles from the launch site. This view was made standing on a pier with about 50-75 other people in attendance. While the view is not as up close as what you see on television, it is incredible to see in person — and to hear the true volume of the launches, especially the sonic booms.
Audio is a mix of Spaceflight Now and SpaceX streaming coverage and is included as it was part of the scene as many people had the coverage on their phones throughout the countdown and launch.
I’ve been rather busy of late, mostly on my professional side. Some fun projects, a hurricane, some travel and so forth…and as a result I haven’t posted much to this blog lately.
That said, I have been busy taking photographs. Here’s a gallery of the launch photos:
After five days of weather-related delays SpaceX launched its forty-second Falcon 9 mission of the year from Pad SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Booster 1067 was being used for its sixth flight, which concluded with a successful touchdown on a drone ship platform off the shore of the Carolinas several minutes after launching.
SpaceX Starlink launch tonight. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station occurred at 10:09PM local time on September 4th, 2022. This was SpaceX’s fortieth launch of the year. The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched Arabsat-6A, STP-2, COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation FM2, KPLO, and two Starlink missions. In addition to the fifty-one Starlink satellites, Sherpa-LTC, an orbital transfer vehicle for customer Spaceflight Inc, a Seattle-based spacecraft developer was placed into orbit on a test mission for the company.
It was a pretty late summer night tonight, with thunderstorms to the northeast and southeast, and a nice breeze blowing off of the Indian River while we waited for liftoff. As is the usual case, we met some nice people who were seeing the first launch as well as some locals like us.
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