SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch spotted from space station (photo)
The launch of SpaceX’s most powerful rocket over the weekend was visible from orbit.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy launched on Sunday (January 15) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sending multiple satellites up for the US Space Force on a mission called USSF-67.
Photographers captured on the ground beautiful photos of the launch. An alien observer did too – the International Space Station (ISS), which happened to be in the right place at the right time on Sunday.
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“An external high-definition camera on the International Space Station captured the launch plume of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket as it ascended to orbit from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after liftoff on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023.” NASA officials wrote in a description of the photo (opens in new tab).
“The space station flew 262 miles [422 kilometers] over the Atlantic Ocean just after an orbital sunset at the time of this photo,” they added.
This view from the station shows the launch plume of the @SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket after liftoff on Sunday, January 15, 2023 from @NASAKennedy in Florida. pic.twitter.com/TRWNggsGasJanuary 19, 2023
USSF-67 was the fifth-ever mission for the falcon heavywhere three work tied together Falcon 9 first stages. The flight lifted a military communications satellite called Continuous Broadcast Augmenting SATCOM 2 and five smaller spacecraft for the Space Force.
Generating more than 5 million tons of thrust at launch, the Heavy was until recently the most powerful operational missile in the world. NASA is huge Space Launch System (SLS) claimed that title when it first launched on November 16, 2022, on the agency’s website artemis 1 moon mission. (The SLS generates about 8.8 million pounds of thrust at launch.)
SpaceX launched 61 orbital missions in 2022, and 2023 could be an even bigger year for the company. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said last August (opens in new tab) that the company was “aiming for up to 100 flights” by 2023.
SpaceX has launched five missions so far this year, including two in the past two days. USSF-67 was the only mission of these five to use a Falcon Heavy; the other four employed Falcon 9s.
Mike Wall is the author of “Outside (opens in new tab)(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for extraterrestrial life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). follow us on twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or Facebook (opens in new tab).
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