After a two day stand down thanks to weather, SpaceX launched its first Falcon Heavy in 18 months from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. It was the 12th Falcon Heavy mission overall and the 31st launch overall this year from Florida.
Astrobotic has announced that its Griffin-1 lunar mission is now targeting July 2026, a shift that gives engineers time to complete propulsion integration and qualify the lander’s engines. Their update, published today, also outlines steady progress on systems from tanks to software as the company prepares to deliver multiple payloads to the Moon’s south-polar Nobile region.
With this news, any chance of a Falcon Heavy launch from Kennedy Space Center in 2025 is now kaput.
Astrobotic said that Griffin-1’s structural build is “nearing full integration,” with pressure tanks, ramps, attitude-control thrusters and solar arrays completing fit checks. The company says each completed milestone narrows the gap to launch and the attempted precision landing at Nobile.
The stakes are significant for the Pittsburgh-based firm after Peregrine Mission One failed to reach the Moon last year due to a propellant leak and later burned up on reentry, an outcome that the company says sharpened their focus on ground testing and flight-like rehearsals ahead of Griffin-1.
Today’s schedule update marks the clearest timing guide since mid-2025, when NASA’s CLPS page last summarized the mission.
Astrobotic also reports its flight avionics are assembled and accepted for flight, and a “closed-loop” landing rehearsal is running on the ground. Using the company’s LunaRay software to generate real-time images and 3D point-clouds of the terrain, the testbed feeds data into Griffin’s Terrain Relative Navigation and Hazard Detection & Avoidance algorithms—critical for an autonomous touchdown in a place where GPS doesn’t exist.
Griffin-1 is Astrobotic’s follow-on to the failed Peregrine demo and is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) line of deliveries supporting Artemis-era science at the south pole. NASA previously confirmed that after the VIPER rover was canceled in 2024, the Griffin task order would continue as a lander and engine flight demonstration on a reconfigured manifest—an approach that today’s update effectively advances toward with engine qualification now underway.
The lander’s propulsion system is built around four composite-overwrapped propellant tanks, designed to stay lightweight while holding high-pressure loads. With the tank installs and remaining harness work finished, Griffin will move into environmental acceptance tests—vibration, thermal vacuum and other checks—to certify the vehicle for launch and lunar operations.
The payload manifest remains anchored by Venturi Astrolab’s FLIP (FLEX Lunar Innovation Platform) rover, which is deep into thermal-vac and integrated functional tests; Astrobotic’s own CubeRover; and BEACON rover (the Benchmark for Engineering and Autonomous Capabilities in Operations and Navigation — a joint lunar surface demonstration from Mission Control and Astrobotic), which has already completed end-to-end “flatsat” simulations with the lander. Secondary cargo now in house includes a Nippon Travel Agency plaque carrying messages from Japanese schoolchildren, a Nanofiche “Galactic Library to Preserve Humanity,” and a sealed MoonBox capsule with items from around the world.
Business is picking up here on the Space Coast, and we’re heading into a very busy stretch on the Eastern Range with missions to Mars, the Moon, low Earth orbit and of course ISS all set to launch here. Best of all, they’ll ride aboard a wide array of rockets and we’ll see some rare birds taking flight from here in Florida.
Those flagship and keystone launches will be mixed in with the regular Starlink and Project Kuiper missions along with some commercial satellite missions. In short, if you like watching rocket launches, the next few months here at The Cape are going to be a treat. Get your bug spray and lawn chair ready.
Regulars who watch pad activity or track transport moves out of Astrotech or the Blue Origin integration facility off Space Commerce Way are already seeing the signs: New Glenn’s first stage is at LC-36 being integrated to GS-2 (New Glenn’s second state) and preparing for an integrated static firing as part of its launch campaign. SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy is on the manifest again, albeit in lightly written pencil. And NASA’s Artemis II stack is inching toward flight, with some saying that the crew of that mission will be heading to moon as soon as February 2026. Best we can tell, here’s what’s real, what’s rumor, and what’s sitting on the pad right now:
Starting things off, Blue Origin rolled out its GS-1 booster — Never Tell Me The Odds — to Launch Complex 36 on October 8th. This is a sure sign of the impending second flight of Blue’s New Glenn, a 320-foot tall behemoth of a rocket that the company will use to power the multiple missions it is currently working on.
The rollout from Blue’s factory on Exploration Way kicked off final pad integration for the flight. Following completion of that and culminating in a static firing of GS-1, it’s fair to say that the launch campaign has kicked off for NG-2, carrying NASA’s EscaPADE dual spacecraft, bound for Mars orbit to study solar wind interactions, plus a secondary payload for Viasat.
The static fire is expected in the next 7–10 days according to unofficial sources, and that will be the final greenlight before range clearance. The company already has a launch license, so there will be no need to wait for any FAA approvals.
While Blue Origin hasn’t publicly confirmed a date, multiple launch tracking sites now list November 9, 2025, as the likely target. That may change, of course, so stay tuned.
Assuming a November New Glenn flight, eyes will turn from one end of The Cape to the other, for a rare SpaceX Falcon Heavy mission, this time flying Astrobotic’s Griffin Mission One under NASA’s CLPS program. The lander will ferry the VIPER lunar rover to the south pole of the Moon.
The mission is notable not just for its science payload and is a critical mission for Astrobotic, the mission’s operator. Their first attempt at a lunar landing was not successful, but after applying lessons learned from its Peregrine Mission One, which launched in January 2024 but experienced an anomaly that prevented it from reaching the Moon.
The window opens in early December, though final pad dates haven’t been published.
Frankly, a delay into 2026 would not be terribly surprising. Nothing on Astrobotic’s or NASA’s websites indicates the lander is in Florida for final launch preparation and payload integration. Add in the current shutdown state of the federal government and you can see this mission shifting right on the calendar fair easily.
With the recent transportation of the Orion capsule stack to the VAB and the SLS rocket that awaits it there, things are literally coming together nicely for America’s first crewed mission beyond low-Earth orbit in over fifty years.
NASA is saying that Artemis II is now tracking toward a no-earlier-than February 2026 launch, with an official “no later than” window of April 2026. The mission will send four astronauts around the Moon aboard Orion and riding atop the SLS Block 1 rocket. This will be the first crewed flight of Orion and will raise the count of crewed American spacecraft systems to three, if one includes the Starliner program.
Artemis II will bring the excitement and the crowds that go along with it, so this is a launch to watch closely.
While Starship continues testing from Boca Chica, SpaceX is working feverishly at LC-39A and is progressing to bring full-stack launches to the Cape.
No launch license yet for Florida flights, and no integration tower ready for Super Heavy booster ops. That said, groundwork is active.
Expect a first Florida-based Starship no earlier than mid-2026, contingent on pad completion and FAA approval. That launch would be key to fulfilling the Artemis HLS lander contract. After Artemis II, all eyes will turn to Artemis II, and there are going to be literally dozens of Starship launches from here and in Boca Chica to the support that mission.
First though, a lot has to happen here at The Cape: Starship must gain approval from the FAA, and secondly, the construction at LC-39A and at Hangar X must be completed. Flight hardware will be manufactured in Texas and transported to the Cape by water, and after all of that, all of the pieces need to be put together into an integrated flight system. Sounds daunting, with a lot of potential potholes, but it is foolish to ever bet against SpaceX and their capability to get things done.
So, mid-2026 optimistically. If there are delays, any time after that. Time will tell, but be sure of this: Starship is coming as NASA and the DoD both want it.
Falcon 9, Atlas V and Vulcan will all stay busy with constellation-building, government missions and commercial missions.
They may be overshadowed for a time by the big missions set to fly from here in Florida, but the bread-and-butter rocket launches will continue apace and will be increasing: SpaceX is looking to raise its Falcon 9 pace from The Cape and launching more Starlink satellites thereby, Vulcan is now operational and with a notable backlog of flights, and New Glenn is not far behind. Let’s not forget the venerable Atlas V, it will be carrying Kuiper Project satellites to orbit at a fair steady pace as well.
So if you like rocket launches, this is going to be like Christmas for you. Good thing it’s almost Christmas!
Since its first flight in 2018, Falcon Heavy has demonstrated exceptional lift capacity and mission flexibility. After the retirement of the venerable Delta IV Heavy, Falcon Heavy is the only three-liquid booster-core combination in operation at the Cape. SLS uses solid rockets as its side cores.
So far this year, Falcon Heavy has not been on SpaceX’s launch schedule. The last Heavy launch was on October 14, 2024, but at least one is tentatively set for late 2025, and as of now, there are no confirmed Falcon Heavy launches with a fixed date before 2027.
Astrobotic’s Griffin Mission One is a lunar lander contracted by NASA as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, and it is slated to head for the Moon aboard a Falcon Heavy. It is reportedly on schedule for a December launch from Kennedy Space Center, assuming that payload preparation and rocket availability remain on track.
For other Falcon Heavy missions, the schedule is far more nebulous. There are two potential Falcon Heavy missions scheduled for next year, but no specific target dates for launch have been announced.
That said, it is possible that after the Griffin launch late this year that SpaceX might launch Starship from LC-39A before a Falcon Heavy. Possible, sure, but launch schedules have a funny way of changing without notice, so as always, keep an eye on the schedule trackers for the latest information.
First, the USSF launches recently granted (plus Griffin). After that, it gets interesting.
| Expected Falcon Heavy Launches — Now through January 1, 2027 | ||||
| Mission / Payload | Launch Vendor | Rocket | Estimated / NET Date | Remarks / Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Griffin Mission 1 | SpaceX | Falcon Heavy | Late 2025 | Listed on multiple tracking sites as the next Falcon Heavy launch from LC-39A. |
| USSF-75 | SpaceX | Falcon Heavy | 2027 | Appears in SpaceX manifest as a future Falcon Heavy mission. |
| USSF-70 (ROOSTER-5 & TETRA) | SpaceX | Falcon Heavy | 2027 | Listed in 2027 manifest; details subject to change. |
| NROL-97 | SpaceX | Falcon Heavy | 2027 | Manifest sources list as planned Falcon Heavy mission. |
| USSF-186 | SpaceX | Falcon Heavy | 2027 | Manifest shows “planned” status for late-decade launch. |
As of October 6, 2025. Launch dates are subject to change or cancellation.
Others:
There is no current launch schedule for launching the ViaSat-3 F3 (Asia-Pacific) satellite; the satellite’s launch is planned for late in 2026, after its sister satellite, ViaSat-3 F2, is in service. It will be carried to orbit aboard Falcon Heavy.
Astrobotic’s third lunar mission is targeted for launch in 2026 aboard Falcon Heavy. No date for liftoff has been given as of yet.
Nancy Roman Grace Telescope: presumed to be in 2027.
Artemis Gateway PPE & HALO: presumed to be in 2027 if program not canceled.
That tells me that if I want to witness the raw power and fury of a Falcon Heavy any time soon that I should make plans for the Astrobotic launch later this year. It might be a while after that before the heavy lifter flies from The Cape.
Tempus fugit, a lot of clocks say: “time is fleeting.” For a facility as established and enduring as Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, it might seem like forever since the first rocket launched from here. Time has flown and so have thousands of rockets and missiles from America’s premier spaceport. Truth is, CCSFS has been open “only” 75 years, but it continues to have a bright future not only today but also for the long-term future.
On July 24, 1950, a spit of land without much more than scrub grass, sand dunes, and millions of mosquitoes erupted with thunder as a two-stage rocket named Bumper 8 became the first vehicle ever launched from Cape Canaveral. At 9:28 a.m., an ignition flash and roar marked not just a technical achievement, but the start of the Space Age in America.
The Bumper 8 mission was managed by the U.S. Army, specifically the Army Ordnance Corps in cooperation with the newly formed Long Range Proving Ground (LRPG), which would later evolve into the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, ABMA. It would be ABMA and not NASA that launch the United State’s entrance into orbital launches when Explorer I flew not far from where Bumper 8 launched. Eventually, ABMA was largely folded into the United States’ fledgling space agency, NASA.
The Bumper 8 launch was the product of collaboration between military engineers, scientists—many of them veterans of World War II rocketry—and support from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which developed the WAC Corporal upper stage.
Technically, Bumper 8 was a Frankenstein’s monster of its era: a German V-2 missile (originally designed for wartime attacks on London and Antwerp), repurposed by American engineers, with a U.S.-built WAC Corporal sounding rocket bolted to the nose. The V-2 served as the first stage, firing for about 60 seconds and pushing the assembly to an altitude of roughly 10 miles and a speed of over 3,500 miles per hour before flaming out.
Once at altitude, the WAC Corporal ignited, its smaller engine firing for another 40 seconds, pushing the second stage even higher and faster. Engineers tracking the flight from hastily assembled bunkers confirmed that the rocket reached more than 10 miles in altitude—far less than some later Bumper flights, but still a triumph for a first attempt at a brand-new site.
“I remember standing behind the blast shield, feeling the ground tremble and wondering if all our calculations would hold up,” recalled one young Army engineer present for the launch. “We had no idea what would happen—whether it would explode on the pad, veer out to sea, or fly as intended. When those engines lit, it was like watching the future arrive in a ball of fire.”
For the military brass, Bumper 8 was about more than scientific curiosity. In 1950, America’s nerves were raw. The Soviet Union had exploded its first atomic bomb less than a year before, and Cold War tensions colored every decision. The Korean War had erupted only a month prior, raising the stakes for missile and rocket research. The Pentagon needed to demonstrate that the U.S. could not only match but surpass its adversaries in missile technology.
The location for the launch—then just an isolated strip of sand and scrub known more for fishing and mosquitoes was chosen for its safety and isolation, allowing spent rocket stages to fall harmlessly into the Atlantic. The Long Range Proving Ground was as makeshift as its name suggested: a single concrete pad (Launch Complex 3), sandbag bunkers for the launch team, and primitive communications equipment. The workforce was a mixture of Army soldiers, civilian engineers, and, in the background, several German scientists brought over after World War II under Operation Paperclip.
That day, the Bumper 8’s upper stage did not set an altitude record—it was later flights in the Bumper series that would push into the edge of space. But the launch proved that Cape Canaveral could support rocketry of increasing sophistication. The Cape quickly became a focal point for military missile programs—Redstone, Atlas, and Titan, all tested here, laying the groundwork for the coming space race. Redstone would carry Alan Shepard on the first US crewed mission, Atlas would carry John Glenn to orbit and an iteration of Titan would be the booster of choice for the Gemini Program.
See Also: Blockhouse Site For Bumper 8 Launch Rediscovered
It wasn’t just about hardware and geopolitics. There was an undeniable thrill for those on the ground. “I had never seen anything like it—the way that thing leapt off the pad,” said Mary Pinson, the wife of an ABMA engineer. “We were sweating in the Florida heat, covered in mosquito bites, and when the rocket launched, we knew we were watching history.”
Within a decade, the stakes shifted from military defense to exploration. The Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957 galvanized the United States, leading to the creation of NASA in 1958. ABMA was all but absorbed by NASA, which in turn put its technical development center in Huntsville, where most were already working: at Redstone Arsenal. The Army and Air Force test ranges merged into what became the Eastern Test Range, and Cape Canaveral was transformed almost overnight from a sleepy fishing village into the very center of the high-tech world.
In 1962, the area grew even larger when the Launch Operations Center (LOC) was established immediately to the north of Cape Canaveral as an independent NASA field center. In November 1963, President Lyndon Johnson designated the facilities of the Launch Operations Center and Station No. 1 of the Atlantic Missile Range as the John F. Kennedy Space Center to honor the fallen president.
The Space Coast was born.
The Launch Operations Center (later renamed as KSC) was founded out of necessity and ambition. In 1961, after President John F. Kennedy set the national goal to land a man on the Moon by the end of the decade, NASA realized it needed much more space for larger rockets, new facilities, and increased activity. The original launch site at Cape Canaveral—where Bumper 8 and dozens of military and civilian rockets had flown—was crowded, fragmented, and mostly run by the military. There was no room for the Vehicle Assembly Building, the giant crawlerways, or the miles of safety buffer required for the Saturn V.
NASA, with support from Congress, quickly began acquiring land west and north of the Cape. The chosen site was Merritt Island: a mix of wetlands, scrub, orange groves, small farms, fishing villages, and a handful of beach communities like Allenhurst, Shiloh, and the lively Titusville Beach. The acquisition was the largest forced relocation in NASA’s history. Over 80,000 acres (about 125 square miles) were taken—mostly through federal purchase but also through eminent domain when owners resisted. This area included the future footprint of KSC and a vast buffer zone for safety.
Compared to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS), Kennedy Space Center is much larger. Today, KSC spans about 144,000 acres. CCSFS is roughly 15,800 acres. That means KSC covers nearly ten times the land of CCSFS, with much of it remaining undeveloped as a buffer.
The human cost for the construction of KSC was significant. More than 1,000 families were displaced in the 1960s. The thriving black community of Allenhurst, the farming hamlet of Orsino, and most of tiny Shiloh disappeared. In total, at least 5,000 people lost their homes.
Titusville Beach—a small but beloved oceanfront community where locals and visitors came to swim, picnic, and fish—was erased. All but one of its buildings were demolished, its dunes bulldozed, and public access to the beach was cut off as NASA established a controlled area. And the building that was preserved? You may have guessed it. The Astronaut Beach House, a two-story cottage, was built in 1962 as a part of the then Neptune Beach subdivision, between where pads 40 and 41 stand today. NASA preserved and maintained the house through the years, and now its provenance is almost forgotten. There were other homes too: the town itself stretched to the other side of LC-39A.
The town of Wilson’s Corner, another small community, also vanished with only a couple of road signs in the Wildlife Refuge commemorating its existence. Those towns joined settlements of the Paleo-American and later the Ais and Timucuan tribes, dating back 9,000 years: gone and barely remembered.
With so much of the land needed only as a safety buffer, NASA partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to preserve public access to the area. In 1963, the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge was officially established, covering almost the entire non-operational area of Kennedy Space Center. It is a low-security zone except for launches deemed by KSC safety or security to require temporary exclusion from MINWR.
The result is an unusual coexistence: high-tech launch pads surrounded by protected wetlands, lagoons, and forests. The Refuge is now home to over 1,500 species of plants and animals, including endangered species like the Florida scrub-jay, manatees, and bald eagles. Today, MINWR hosts 2.3 million visitors annually.
The Shuttle era brought another transformation, with KSC serving as the base for over 130 shuttle flights from 1981 to 2011. The Cape weathered tragedy—like the AS-204 Apollo I fire, the loss of Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003—but the NASA and its engineers adapted each time, building safer systems and deeper expertise for future space endeavours.
Today, KSC is largely the domain of SpaceX, and the company launches not only crewed missions, but also Falcon Heavy and soon, Starship Heavy from LC-39A. The company has built a large work center at Kennedy, with plans to expand greatly. NASA is staying busy too, as the VAB is still in use, this time to build the SLS rockets that are part of Project Artemis, which aims to return humans to the moon and perhaps even beyond. Instead of LC-39A, Artemis uses LC-39B, the lesser used of the two megapads.
Seventy-five years after Bumper 8’s fiery ascent, Cape Canaveral stands as a testament to American resolve and the relentless drive to explore. From makeshift pads and scavenged missiles, to the front lines of interplanetary exploration and the only place on Earth that was the starting point for vehicles now in interstellar space, the legacy of Cape Canaveral is written in thunder—one launch at a time.
SpaceX, never a company to shy away from daunting challenges, said yesterday that it plans to launch its Starship Heavy megarocket from Florida late this year, pending the completion of environmental reviews. Previously, it had been believed that Starship would come in 2026 or even later, due to several factors: permitting, needed construction and incomplete infrastructure needed to launch the 397 foot tall rocket.
The environmental reviews the announcement speaks of is the Environmental Impact Statement for Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. Ongoing since last May, the EIS initial draft is due later this year with a final decision to come not long after a public comment period.
The reviews are just one of several obstacles SpaceX will need to overcome in order to actually fly Starship from Florida this year. They will also need to complete the Starship tower that has been at LC-39A for a few years, albeit in a partially finished state. Secondly SpaceX will need to construct propellant infrastructure in or near LC-39A to fuel Starship, and finally, if the company intends to land both the first stage of Starship and the Ship (second stage itself) they will need a second tower for one or the other to settle on after its mission.
On top of that, SpaceX will need to have a mission-capable Starship ready before the end of the year, unless they are planning to conduct test flights from the Space Coast as well as their headquarters in Texas. At this point in time, it appears that is some months away at a minimum as the company conducts test flights of the new rocket system.
All that said, it is a tall order to complete all of those items in 2025, especially at an active launch pad that is the only one that can currently support Falcon Heavy launches. On the other hand, if there is a company that can execute a demanding project plan quickly, it is SpaceX.
Pete Carstens is a man who can see things almost no one else can. Long after launch spectators and even photographers have called it a day, Pete continues tracking the launch, watching the streaking rocket sometimes almost all the way to orbit. Fortunately, he shares everything he sees, making space flight journalism all the better for it.
Along with Chuck and Jen Briggs of C&J Images and a handful of highly talented staff photographers, Carstens’ company, Max Q Productions, provides the bulk of the original live video that Spaceflight Now produces. SFN, of course, is one of the highest-tier independent space news organizations that provide live launch coverage and commentary and is trusted by tens of thousands of space enthusiasts around the world as an original, accurate and pleasant place to catch up on all things space-related.
Here in Florida, people often use SFN to keep up with the last hour of a countdown until after liftoff until the conclusion of launch activities. It’s not uncommon for spectators to have a Spaceflight Now livestream playing on their cellphone while they are watching the launch on the beach, beside the Indian River or even at Kennedy Space Center. If there is news, Spaceflight Now will be among the very first to share it.
Rockets travel far and fast, and after a liftoff, it’s never more than a couple of minutes before they are hard to see as a spectator on the ground with the naked eye. At night, after staging, one might see the launching rocket as a dot of light moving across the sky, but not much more than that. During the day, it’s even harder to see.
That’s where Pete Carstens and Max Q comes in. Using his gear, Pete can not only still see the rocket, he can also track a SpaceX booster’s “entry burn” from a couple hundred miles away
Photographers using the highest-end zoom lenses can’t often resolve a rocket that’s fifty miles (80 km) high and traveling a few thousand miles per hour even if they can capture great views of the engines’ flame plume.
How does he do it? “The main unit is a Kintec that has been refurbished by Ed Geiger,” Carstens said. Geiger is a legendary launch videographer who was one of the first to do what was previously the domain of NASA and the US Air Force—tracking rockets with huge telescopes purpose-fit for the task.
“It [the motorized telescope mount] is controlled manually by joystick,” Carstens tells us. “Mounted on it is a 12″ and 8″ telescope along with a 750mm lens as well as a wide lens that I use to acquire the rocket if it moves out of frame due to clouds. That’s four cameras mounted on the tracker.”
As far as cameras, Carstens says, “I’m currently using two Canon R5’s at 4k (can do 8k but overheating is an issue) and a 90D at 4k. I also use a stationary 90D with a 4″ telescope that I’ll use when at KSC for lift off at the launch pad at 120 FPS for slow motion clips.”
Carstens, like many launch photographers, got his start when he moved to the Sunshine State. “I relocated to Florida with my job and family in 2019 and started photographing and taking videos immediately. It took me about one to two years to get my 14″ telescope to be able to track manually with the software provided by Astronomy Live. They can be found on X @astrofreg. I then partnered with US Launch Report and started using one of Ed Geiger’s trackers that he refurbished and have since also partnered with Spaceflight Now.”
“I try to shoot every launch whether out at the Cape, or from my home on the Space Coast,” Carstens says. “Lately the only launches I miss are if I am out of town.”
That’s not always easy. Florida weather is notoriously fickle. It can be raining heavily in one spot, and as little as a single mile away, skies might be partly cloudy. “Weather can be a big issue and in the Florida summer months, it gets quite chaotic,” Carstens told us. “It can be clear at the launch pad and raining 5 miles away. I live about 20 miles south of Cape Canaveral and it can be a very different view from what is going on at the Cape with the guys at Spaceflight Now. It can work in my favor in that Cape Canaveral is completely socked in and clear down at my location.”
We asked what Pete’s favorite launches to capture are, and he said, “I would say any launch around sunset with clear skies are the best. Several launches have key moments that stand out but the Falcon Heavy USSF-67 mission on January 15, 2023 was pretty spectacular, even though my settings were a little off.”
We asked Carstens if he had any advice for amateur photographers trying to take good launch photographs. “Start with a good tripod and a good fluid mount or a 360-degree rotatable panoramic gimbal tripod head ball mount,” he said. “Also a good lens or ‘good glass’.”
Some other advice that Carstens offers is something that amateurs sometimes forget to do, and that’s to record their settings, the conditions at launch as well as the location where they took their photos. “Write down your camera settings for each launch as well as the time of day and conditions and adjust as needed and compare,” Carstens advises. “For instance, there is a huge difference if the sun is behind you vs in front of you. Also, time of year, summer brings humidity (dirty air) vs winter with less humidity (cleaner air) You really notice the difference with a highly magnified lens.”
That “dirty air” that Pete mentions is also called “heat distortion,” “shimmer,” or sometimes a “mirage.” Being that a photographer will always be several miles from the launch pad, the light from the rocket and the launch tower has to go a very long way to reach the camera. The temperature and humidity of the air varies over the length of the distance between the camera and rocket, and that changes its optical qualities very slightly. A good example that anyone should be familiar with is stars “twinkling” at night — that’s heat distortion. It’s the bane of launch photographers in Florida all summer.
Carstens’ advice about using good lenses is sage as well: rockets turn into tiny objects in the sky, and high-quality glass resolves them more clearly, resulting in a better photo. And that should be mounted to a solid tripod that’s steady, coupled with a camera mount that operates smoothly.
If you’d like to keep up with Pete’s work, he told us that “I provide live launch tracking for Spaceflight Now on their live YouTube channel. I also post still images from the video and then edit together the different focal length shots to a video that I post on my YouTube channel at Max-Q Productions – (@maxqproductions1) and then post to the following Social sites, X – @CarstensPete, Instagram – @pete_carstens, Facebook – pete.carstens.56, [and on] TikTok – @petecarstens3.”
Give him a follow on one or more of those channels. If you enjoy incredible images of rockets in flight, you will be glad that you did.
NASA and SpaceX began Europa Clipper’s journey to Jupiter and its moon Europa aboard a Falcon Heavy this afternoon from Kennedy Space Center. Launch was at 12:06 PM EDT under bluebird skies and pleasant temperatures.
NASA and SpaceX began Europa Clipper’s journey to Jupiter and its moon Europa aboard a Falcon Heavy this afternoon from Kennedy Space Center. Launch was at 12:06 PM EDT under bluebird skies and pleasant temperatures.
At 1:11 PM EDT, SpaceX confirmed the successful deployment of Europa Clipper, with the probe now heading towards Mars to begin its looping journey through the solar system.
Europa Clipper now begins a roughly six-year 1.8 billion mile journey to the Jovian system which will include two gravity assists and flybys around the Sun before it reaches its destination.
Once it arrives in its orbit around Jupiter, Europa Clipper will perform nearly fifty flybys of Europa, where its instruments will scan the Jovian moon’s oceans for potential signs of life. To date, this is the largest planetary probe NASA has ever flown, and in NASA’s estimation, Europa Clipper would cover an entire regulation basketball court.
Today’s launch was the eleventh Falcon Heavy launch, all from LC-39A. To date, each mission has been successful.
Today’s launch was the last Falcon Heavy slated to fly for this year and some months into 2025: the heavy lifter has the VIPER lunar rover, the NASA Lunar Gateway PPE & HALO mission along with two Space Force missions on the dock for next year, but this far in advance it is impossible to know when payloads will be ready.
This was the sixth and final flight for the two side-boosters, B1064 and B1065, which one year ago today supported NASA’s Psyche mission, as well as three missions for the US Space Force and one for Hughes Electronics.
Overall, it was the 184th orbital (and beyond) launch from historic Launch Complex 39A.
Space fans in Florida won’t have to wait long for the next launch. Now that the FAA has cleared Falcon 9 to resume commercial Falcon family launches, SpaceX plans to resume Starlink launches from Space Launch Complex 40 overnight tonight when it launches Starlink 10-10. The launch window opens at 1:34 AM EDT and closes at 5:26 AM the same day.
By Charles Boyer, October 13, 2024.
NASA and SpaceX plan to send the Europa Clipper probe on its way to the Jovian system aboard Falcon Heavy on Monday, October 14, 2024. Liftoff is scheduled for 12:06 PM EDT from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center.
Should weather or technical reasons prevent the launch from proceeding Monday, additional opportunities exist to launch the probe every day until November 6. Each day, there is one instantaneous window for launch, meaning no long holds to wait for better conditions.
Due to performance requirements, the three Falcon cores will be expended, meaning that there will be no landings at Landing Zone 1 in Cape Canaveral or on drone ships stationed downrange.
Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever developed for a planetary mission. It will study Europa, one of the Galilean moons, through a series of flybys while in orbit around Jupiter. Measuring some 100 feet from edge to edge, NASA states that the probe is roughly the size of a basketball court.
Arrival at Jupiter orbit is planned for April 2030, and according to NASA, “In 2031 [Europa Clipper] will start making 49 science-focused flybys of Europa while looping around the gas giant. The orbit is designed to maximize the science Europa Clipper can conduct and minimize exposure to Jupiter’s notoriously intense radiation.”
Europa Clipper will be surveying for conditions suitable to support life during those flybys after scientists predicted that a salty ocean lies beneath Europa’s icy surface. Those oceans have more water than Earth’s oceans combined.
The 45th Weather Squadron of Space Launch Delta 45 has listed a 5% Probability of Violation for tomorrow’s launch, which means that the weather is expected to be 95% GO at launch time.
Eastwards, relatively speaking. Europa is destined for a path to Jupiter roughly along the orbital plane of other planets, so it will take a path that lines up with the equator.
SpaceCoastLaunchCalendar.com will have a livestream of the launch if you’re not able to watch the launch in person: Livestream
NASA will have a livestream of the launch. NASA+ Europa Clipper
SpaceX will also have a livestream of the launch on their website: Europa Clipper. Coverage will start about about twenty minutes prior to liftoff.
Spaceflight Now will have coverage of the launch starting about one hour before liftoff on Youtube: link
For official updates regarding launch times, NASA’s Europa Clipper site is the best source of information. Starlink launch times change from time to time, and the company generally updates their website within minutes of the decision to change the launch time. This is very handy if none of the streaming options on YouTube have started their broadcasts.
Remember that there is a delay between a launch stream and the actual countdown clock. That is simply because of physics: it takes time for the signal to travel from the launch site, through the Internet, and back down to your phone, resulting in a five to fifteen-second delay.
Next Space Flight an app for iOS and Android phones, has a real-time countdown clock that is accurate to a second, give or take. The app is free. Search the App Store or Google Play. They are also on the web: nextspaceflight.com.
This is a mid-day launch from LC-39A, and that means the best places to view the launch are in northern Titusville or on the Kennedy Space Center proper.
Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center is offering a “Feel The Heat” package from the Banana Creek Viewing Site, which is approximately 3.75 miles from the launch pad. Tickets are $250 per person. Should anyone choose to use this option, an early arrival at the Visitors Center is strongly advised.
Playalinda Beach is closed due to damage from Hurricane Milton. Via the National Park Service: “Canaveral National Seashore is including Apollo & Playalinda beaches within the boundary while we assess damage from Hurricane Milton for the safety of our visitors and staff.”
Northern Titusville Parks: Space View Park, Rotary Riverfront Park and other areas on US-1 North are excellent viewing spots.
Cocoa Beach, Cocoa Beach Pier, Jetty Park Pier will have indirect views, meaning that liftoff will not be visible, but after the rocket clears the pad and any ground obstructions, you will be able to see Falcon Heavy ascending clearly assuming there are no clouds between you and the rocket.
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