Life is filled with special moments. For me one of those special moments was seeing a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch in Florida.
Cape Canaveral in Florida is known for its launches to space via rockets and space shuttles. While NASA is working hard on their upcoming launch to the moon, has SpaceX been working hard to launch rockets to the ISS or to launch Starlink satellites. On March 12, I had the opportunity to witness an actual Falcon 9 launch into the Earth’s orbit.
CREW 10 LAUNCH
I found a great spot near Parrish Park, Titusville together with a lot of other people. You could feel the excitement in the air. About 14 miles from the launch site, I could see the structure to which the rocket was still connected. Via a YouTube live stream, I was following everything that was happening. I was getting super excited by the idea of seeing a rocket launch with humans on their way to the ISS station. However, it wasn’t meant to be.
Forty-four minutes before the launch the Crew-10 launch was postponed due to technical issues. It was a bummer, but at the end of the day it is better seeing no launch than something going wrong. Safety first. To be fair moments like those open your eyes and as everyone was hurrying to their car to leave, I walked around the park a bit.
Over the Indian River Lagoon, I watched the sun set and seeing some dolphins make their appearance. I might have missed the launch, but boy this was such an amazing moment. The sun, the peace and the dolphins coming up was just a perfect way to end the day.
SPACEX FALCON 9
Or so I thought. But then I remembered an unmanned rocket from SpaceX was scheduled for later that night. The Falcon 9 is the first orbital class rocket that can be re-used. This two-stage rocket is designed and manufactured by SpaceX. It’s an exciting rocket that gives the company the opportunity to send both humans as payloads into the Earth Orbit and beyond.
Standing 70 meters tall with only a diameter of 3.7 meters, this incredible piece of engineering has been used in over 400 different launches. Weighing 549,054 kilo, it blows my mind knowing this can be shot into the orbit.
The launch I witnessed had the mission of launching 21 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 40. The Falcon 9 is the most-launched American orbital rocket in history.
Although the Crew 10 flight was also scheduled with a Falcon 9 rocket and a Dragon spacecraft. In short it means that during launch Falcon 9 pushes the Dragon into orbit. At the right time Falcon 9 disconnects from Dragon as it continues its mission. It’s so awesome how humans engineered this!
3, 2, 1… LIFT OFF
Watching the stream via YouTube I knew what was happening. I heard all about it and what happens in seconds before the lift is off. Seeing the smoke and fire lit up the sky, I felt like I was watching something extraordinary. The sky became yellow/orange from the fire and slowly this ball of flames went up. Before it started picking up speed and making the distance between earth and the rocket bigger and bigger.
Around me people were clapping and like me in awe of what we saw. The sheer power of this human made machine is being launched into space. Higher and higher as the sky turned slowly dark again, the sound reached us. The sound waves finally reached me after a minute or two, when the rocket was already high up. A raw, thunderous sound that gave me goosebumps.
The experience of missing the SpaceX Crew 10 launch was a bummer, but this made up for it more than I can describe. I have seen rockets fly above me, but those had the purpose of killing and destroying. This was a completely different feeling. I feel proud to have been able to witness something like this.
As the booster rocket made its way to earth the actual rocket was slowly getting invisible with the naked eye. A once in a lifetime experience, that thankfully I managed to see in real life.
