Falcon 9 from up close

[jon-nyc]

We happened to be at Kennedy Space Center and saw today’s launch.

We hadn’t planned out visit around it, just lucky.

Last launch I witnessed was the first space shuttle launch in 1981.

[Copper]

Nice

[jon-nyc]

It was really serendipitous. We were arriving rather late to KSC, and the guy that took our parking money said ‘good timing - 3 minutes to launch’.

We had no idea.

[mark]

So cool!

[taiwan_girl]

[89th]

Very cool. I always wanted to see a shuttle launch or eventually a launch down there on the space coast. I was able to view a few launches (from 60+ miles away) from the Wallops Island facility, but as you can imagine they were quite distant (and no sound). Sadly, I missed the explosion in 2014... would've lit up the horizon but I was busy making dinner or something at the time.

Link to video

[Copper]

@89th said in Falcon 9 from up close:

Sadly, I missed the explosion in 2014.

I watched it from my driveway in Herndon.

I had seen Wallops launches from there before. The rocket looked about the size of a fingernail at arms length, and no sound.

I watched the liftoff on my iPad, then looked up expecting to see the rocket in a few seconds. I never saw a thing, except on the iPad. It didn't get high enough.