GOES-S Launch from Cape Canaveral on ULA Atlas V Rocket

Today I was in the right place at the right time to see a satellite launched into space. I drove out to Jetty Park at Port Canaveral, and was joined by about 200 other space fans. I had a chat with a guy who had seen 4 shuttle launches! Two at night, and two during the day, and he had seen a shuttle land in Arizona. He said he heard the double sonic boom!

Another guy watched the Space X launch recently, where the rockets came back to ground to be re-used. They landed them exactly where they had planned to. So not only do we have the technology to launch stuff into space, but we can land the rockets to re-use them, and land them where we want to...

It was quite a spectacle today with a cruise ship leaving the port, and a helicopter sitting just above our heads to make sure the air was clear for launch.

Everything went according to plan, apparently. And apart from looking at the wrong place to begin with, I got to film the launch on my Sony a6500. What you can’t see from the film is it took about 5 seconds for the soundwave to come across to where we were… unfortunately you couldn’t hear it on the film above the helicopter noise, so I decided to go with the music overlay.

More information on the GEOS-S satellite can be found at: https://www.space.com/39838-goes-s-weather-satellite-launch-webcast.html

Music by bensound.com