Naturally, most all of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral are high security areas limited to authorized personnel. What you may not know is that much of the property is wilderness, and in fact half of it is a national wildlife refuge. Before you think about going overland to get a better view of a rocket launch, you might want to consider that there are literally hundreds of volunteer security guards on patrol.

Here’s Carl, a 8-10 year veteran of the patrol zone, keeping an eye on me.

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Falcon 9 carried dual-band, six-ton mobile communications relay station Inmarsat I-6 F2 to orbit for Inmarsat, a British company.

The launch was at 10:59pm local time at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s SLC-40 complex. It was a cloudy, muggy evening as a cold front approached, but the weather was deemed good enough for the successful launch.

Unfortunately, due to some bad luck and lack of a backup plan, these photos were taken through the trees on the banks of the Indian River. The low cloud deck made the show a very brief one after liftoff, though from time to time the rocket glared through a gap in the clouds.

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SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39-A inside Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Thursday morning with 53 Starlink satellites for their Starlink network.

This was Booster 1069’s fifth mission overall.

Photo was taken aside the aptly named Mosquito Lagoon, and on a relatively warm winter’s night, the flying insects were out in force.

They were not the only bite-y things about — as the sound of the rocket’s engines washed over the water, a bull alligator perhaps 10-15 meters away roared his disapproval. It is said that the sub-sonic tremors that accompany any nearby rocket launch are similar to those issued by males competing with one another for territory. Undoubtedly the gator would have been foul-tempered if it had been encountered. Fortunately, that was not the case and no photographers were harmed in viewing the launch.

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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. 

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Smog on the water, and a fire in the sky…

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.

Falcon 9's "long tail" flame plume close to main engine cutoff on January 10, 2023
Falcon 9’s “long tail” flame plume close to main engine cutoff on January 10, 2023
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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.

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