Four people launch into orbit from Kennedy Space Center on a moonlit September night and make their way into history with the first ever all-civilian orbital mission. Alongside this, the mission is meant to raise charity for St. Judes' cancer research. I watched the launch from Mims about fourteen miles from the pad and, with it occurring at twilight, the sight of it was utterly spectacular. One could actually see the booster making it’s way back to Earth, and the landing burn is visible in this shot, on the left side of the frame, underneath the launch streak. Besides the launch itself, Jupiter and Saturn have cameos on the ride side of the frame, being the two bright streaks on the right, between the moon and the rocket’s trail. The twisty light trail by the rocket was a plane orbiting the launch, possibly taking PR photos or doing security patrols.

70 mins of star trails and 3 minutes of the#HISPASAT30W6 / Satellite Hispasat​ by #SpaceX

Details: Star trail photos shot at ISO500, f8, 60-second exposure time, and the streak was shot at ISO100, f22, 180-second exposure time.

(pic: me / We Report Space​)

Go ESCAPADE, go Blue Origin!

This was the view from Jetty Park Beach of the 3:55pm (ET) Thursday launch of the New Glenn rocket.

Wow, just, wow.

Congratulations to the BO team!

The Space Coast Zero-G Indicator Club met last night to watch the SpaceX Starlink launch.

Earth & Tremor (probably): "Don't worry, Snoop, you'll get up there soon."

Snoopy (definitely): "You whippersnappers know I orbited the Moon, right?"

(255-second exposure by me; you can see me in the background, standing remarkably still for a 4-minute exposure)

I took these photos last night from the Barber Bridge in Vero Beach (about 60 miles south of Cape Canaveral), at 12:42 AM as SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket on the Starlink Group 4-12 mission. It deployed 53 Starlink satellites that were added to it's Starlink satellite internet constellation. The first stage booster landed successfully on the drone ship Just Read The Instructions. It was the 12th flight for this booster.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying several Starlink satellites into orbit on July 28, 2024. This image was shot from Vero Beach which is about 70 miles (112Km) to the south of the launch site in Cape Canaveral.

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We spent three days in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to attend Aeronaut, a three day rocket launch event organized by AeroPac.

You can drive on the playa (dry lake bed) at high speed. It is quite safe, there is no police around, and you can see other moving vehicles by the huge dust cloud they cause. The playa is gypsum, a compressible and very fine-grained material. This car is maybe 15 miles away. The dust cloud lingers for many miles behind the car.

I processed a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure, desaturated the result, and added a bit of vignetting.

-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, NEX-6, _DSC4497_hdr1bal1e

Saturday night lights in Satellite Beach!

SpaceX sent the Turksat5B satellite to space atop a Falcon9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, FL at 10:58pm (ET).

(Pic: me / We Report Space)

“SPACE SHUTTLE LIFTOFF. An art concept depicts a Space Shuttle Orbiter lifting off the launch pad with all engines burning in parallel. Solid fuel rocket boosters (on either side of the large external tank) develop 11,210,000 newtons (2,500,000 pounds) of thrust as they help push the Orbiter into space. Following burnout at about 43.4 kilometers (27 miles), the depleted boosters parachute back to a predetermined site in the ocean. They are recovered and refurbished for use on other missions. The large liquid propellant tank continues to feed the Orbiter’s main engines liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen as the delta-winged vehicle nears Earth orbit insertion. Just before entering the orbit phase the now-empty external tank is jettisoned. The development of the Space Shuttle introduces a new, low-cost method of transportation to and from Earth orbit. Once operational (first flight is planned for 1980), Shuttle costs per mission will be about $18 million. By comparison Apollo 17 mission operations costs were $105 million. The Solid Rocket Boosters, External Tank, and Orbiter main engines are under the management of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, and the Orbiter is managed by the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.”

Above per the caption of the widely published/seen 1977 lithograph equivalent of the photograph.

I’m not familiar with the artist, “ZƎЯAV⅃A .M”, nor the hieroglyphic/alien? “AƧU” on the wing.

Give. Me. Strength. WHOOSAH…it’s NOT working.

¡!¡ƧƎӘOOTƧ AƧAИ ƧƧƎ⅃ƎU⅃Ɔ

…HӘU !¡!ǝsnɔxǝ oИ

- www.kevin-palmer.com - On my way home I briefly stopped at this overlook on Highway 14A to see the stars. That's when I noticed this glowing satellite trail to the west. An astronomer on Twitter identified it as the Chinese rocket Long March 6A carrying the Yunhai-3 satellite. Shortly after this fuel dump the rocket broke up into more than 50 pieces, adding to the space debris hundreds of miles above Earth.

At 11:04pm (ET) Friday night, #SpaceX launched a #FalconHeavy rocket, sending the Echostar24 / Jupiter3 payload to space.

~8-mins after launch, the 2 side boosters returned, complete with sonic booms.

Wow. Just, wow.

Every time I think I'm ready for the sonic booms, I'm never ready for the sonic booms; I end up jumping about 10-feet when they arrive. It's incredible.

(ߓ纠458-sec exposure / me)

Shortly after launch on 14 April, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, captured this stunning view of Earth. The image was taken by Juice monitoring camera 1 (JMC1) at 14:22 CEST, following launch at 14:14 CEST. JMC1 is located on the front* of the spacecraft and looks diagonally up into a field of view that will eventually see deployed antennas, and depending on their orientation, part of one of the solar arrays.

JMC images provide 1024 x 1024 pixel snapshots. The images shown here are lightly processed with a preliminary colour adjustment.

More information and images.

*Additional technical information: “front” means +X side of the spacecraft (the opposite side, -X hosts the high gain antenna). JMC1 looks towards the +Y/+Z direction.

Credits: ESA/Juice/JMC, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The Ariane 5 launch vehicle liftoff for flight VA261 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 5 July at 23:00 BST (6 July at 00:00 CEST). Flight VA261 carried two payloads into space – the German space agency DLR’s experimental communications satellite Heinrich Hertz and the French communications satellite Syracuse 4b. The flight is the 117th and final mission for Ariane 5, a series which began in 1996.

Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut

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We spent this weekend on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada to attend Mudrock, a three day rocket launch event organized by AeroPac.

My son is collecting his 9 feet tall high power rocket after its successful maiden flight. With this he is now certified to launch level 2 high power rockets.

The rocket splits up in three parts in the air, controlled by two redundant flight computers. The lower section contains the motor and fins; the middle section is the electronics bay, containing the flight computers and cameras; the nose cone is at the top. The sections are connected with long kevlar cords. The drogue chute is connected to the cord that connects the lower and middle sections. The main parachute is connected to the upper cord near the nose cone - my son just rolled it up.

Update: Here is a video compilation of this launch.

I processed a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure, then selectively brightened the desert to convey the hot environment, and desaturated the image.

-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, NEX-6, _DSC9718_hdr1bal1f

Almost there: The #SpaceX #Falcon9 rocket carrying the Intelsat G33/G34 payload approaches the almost full Hunter's Moon.

At 5:04pm (ET) Wednesday (6/29), SpaceX launched the SES-22 payload atop Falcon9 booster B1073.

Cloudy skies made for a moody backdrop as the rocket thundered off the pad.

Views from the pad were captured with sound-activated cameras.

(📷: me /

@WeReportSpace

)

On Tuesday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket sending Starlink satellites to space, seen here over the Indian River Lagoon from the Space Coast of Florida. This was the 99th rocket launch from the Space Coast so far this year.

(Bonus: The re-entry burn far out over the ocean is quite visible, frame right)

I Set up two cameras on the beach, in Vero Beach, to capture the launch of the ULA Delta IV Heavy from Canaveral which is about 65 miles north of here. The payload was a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office.

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We are just back from a 3 day rocket event in the Black Rock Desert. It was Balls, the Wild West event of rocketry, with large and dangerous rockets. My son got invited to help prepare the most spectacular rocket, a two stage rocket that was designed to reach 200,000 feet altitude. I was invited to be the official photographer. Due to dangerously large motors, this rocket's launch pad was 3 miles away from the camp. Only a few people could see the preparation and launch up close.

This photo shows the owner of the rocket standing on the ladder and arming the rocket.

Spec of the rocket:

- two stage rocket built by Jim Jarvis from Texas

- total weight of rocket 250 lb

- booster (first stage) has a P motor built by Stu Barrett

- sustainer (second stage) has an O motor, made by CTI

- electronics: Stratologger, live flight status update by Kate

The booster flight was nominal, The sustainer flight was initially nominal, then Kate announced an anomaly at 40K+ feet altitude- the sustainer seems to have shredded at burnout at Mach 3.72. The cause of anomaly is not known at this time. The booster was recovered successfully.

What a project! Kudos to Jim and team for the achievement, even though it did not go as planned! As we all know from SpaceX, rocketry is hard. Jim had a multi page checklist, and everything was done very methodically. Hats off!

I processed a balanced HDR photo from an iPhone image, and carefully adjusted the curves.

-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 exposure, iPhone 6 Plus, IMG_7657_hdr1bal1b

Camera 2 shot of the SpaceX Inspiration 4 launch. In the image you can see the "twilight effect". This occurs when a launch is shortly before sunrise, or as in this case, shortly after sunset. The sun has set and it is dark, but the sun is still shining at the 60 to 90 mile altitude where the vehicle is flying. As stages of the rocket separate and fire their engines the sunlight is refracted by the gasses that are released, which creates amazing patterns of light in the sky. I took these shots from the beach at Sebastian Inlet State Park.

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket stands at Space Launch Complex-3 (SLC-3) with the Landsat 9 spacecraft at Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA. Photo credit: United Launch Alliance

The weather cleared up nicely for the Monday night #SpaceX #Starlink launch, seen here from Cocoa Beach.

The launch was nominal; the #Falcon9 1st stage was not recovered.

(Pic: me / We Report Space )

The first Meteosat Third Generation Imager (MTG-I1) satellite lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 13 December at 21:30 CET.

From geostationary orbit, 36,000 km above the equator, this all-new weather satellite will provide state-of-the art observations of Earth’s atmosphere and realtime monitoring of lightning events, taking weather forecasting to the next level. The satellite carries two completely new instruments: Europe’s first Lightning Imager and a Flexible Combined Imager.

MTG-I1 is the first of six satellites that form the full MTG system, which will provide critical data for weather forecasting over the next 20 years. In full operations, the mission will comprise two MTG-I satellites and one MTG Sounding (MTG-S) satellites working in tandem.

Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut

The fourth Spacebus Neo satellite to benefit from ESA’s Neosat programme has launched into space on board the second Ariane 5 launch mission of 2022.

The 8.9 metre, three-storeys-high communications satellite – which will deliver high-speed broadband and in-flight connectivity across Europe for its operator, Eutelsat – weighs 6.525 tonnes and accounted for 99% of the 6.62-tonne launch mass.

Called Eutelsat Konnect Very High Throughput Satellite, it includes several innovative features developed under an ESA Partnership Project with satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space.

The satellite was launched at 23:45 CEST (18:45 local time) on 6 September from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, into a sub-synchronous transfer orbit. This highly elliptical trajectory, which loops from close to Earth to up to 60 000 kilometres away from the planet at an inclination of 3.5°, will enable it to transfer into a geostationary orbit some 36 000 kilometres above Earth.

After reaching geostationary orbit the satellite – the tallest ever built in Europe – will be tested further before it enters commercial service.

The satellite features new antenna deployment and pointing mechanisms used within the antenna tracking system, as well as other innovative features including next-generation batteries and structural panels, all developed under the ESA Partnership Project.

Credits: ESA / CNES / Arianespace / Optique vidéo du CSG - P. Piron

I took this shot of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy as it made it's first night time launch at 2:30 am local time. I took this shot from Vero Beach which is about 70 miles south of the launch site. The light show in the sky literally looked like something out of a science fiction novel. It's not science fiction though, it's SpaceX.

The SpaceX Falcon9 GPSIIISV06 launch was initially scheduled for 7:10 am (ET) Wednesday, January 18, 2023, or 5 minutes before sunrise. A crescent Moon was in the sky, so I planned to line up the rocket with the Moon. To do so required me to be at a specific location on Playalinda Beach, .6 miles from the nearest parking spot. I got there early enough to get a place in the closest lot and started the march along the beach with not-weightless gear in tow. By 6:40,

I was approaching the pin on my map when I got the text from none other than Mr. John Kraus: "NEW T-0 7:24."

Back to the car I went, my watch screaming at me, wondering if I was working out, and eventually, having a cardiac event.

I headed west, and with the quick help of PhotoPills, The Photographer's Ephemeris, and flightclub.io, John and I settled on a location in the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. I reached it at 7:08 pm, just enough time to find a break in the trees and set up gear. The Sun rose at 7:15, and it wasn't immediately clear that it would make it over clouds low on the horizon, but with 4 minutes to spare before launch, the Sun (with all its sunspots) was where it needed to be, and at 7:24, so was the rocket.

It was magical.

John's shot is really great, you should go check it out, and if you aren't following him, you should be. Find him at John Kraus Photos.

Captured using a Canon R5+RF100-500L & 1.4x TC.

The first Meteosat Third Generation Imager (MTG-I1) satellite lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 13 December at 21:30 CET.

From geostationary orbit, 36,000 km above the equator, this all-new weather satellite will provide state-of-the art observations of Earth’s atmosphere and realtime monitoring of lightning events, taking weather forecasting to the next level. The satellite carries two completely new instruments: Europe’s first Lightning Imager and a Flexible Combined Imager.

MTG-I1 is the first of six satellites that form the full MTG system, which will provide critical data for weather forecasting over the next 20 years. In full operations, the mission will comprise two MTG-I satellites and one MTG Sounding (MTG-S) satellites working in tandem.

Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut

The view from Vero Beach as a SpaceX Falcon Heavy lifts off from Cape Canaveral which is about 70 miles to the north. The vehicle carried three K-Band communications satellites into orbit at a cost of $90,000,000. No attempt was made to recover any of the three boosters used for this flight.

Tonight could have been my second chance to get it right. Sometimes I do get it right on the second try. Last night I wanted to go someplace to shoot the Super Moon. Generally, my moon shots are pretty bad, but it gives me an excuse to run away in the dark… as opposed to my usual habit of running away during the daylight hours. But, I had made plans to meet a friend for dinner last night, and as is usually the case with most of my friends…. My suggestion of “Hey! Let’s go drive for an hour so I can try to take pictures of the moon!” was met with little enthusiasm…. Well, who am I kidding… it was met with no enthusiasm… more like, “No…. I don’t think that’s going to be happening.” (Have I mentioned recently that I really need a few new friends?~) So, I went tonight. Alone. And I got to where I was going, and it was the usual scenario. First of all, I turned on my camera and nothing… I had changed my battery before leaving home, so it couldn’t be the battery (or could it?~) So, I popped the battery out and put it back in and then it was Ok. Then my shutter remote malfunctioned and just kept shooting continually. I played around with that for awhile, but I couldn’t fix it. Not happy about that! Finally, I set my tripod up and was playing around with settings and just generally amusing myself when some guy came up to me and asked me if I was there for the rocket launch. What rocket launch says the person that has no clue what is going on in the world these days. So, he told me about the Antares rocket launch and was amazed that I knew nothing about it… afterall it was “all over Facebook” today, he said. I haven’t looked at FB all day. So, I told him I had just come too see the moon rise because it was a nice night. Then he began to speculate on which of the many people there were there for the rocket launch and which were there for the moon rise. Ok. Then he told me exactly where the moon rise would be and where I needed to stand. He explained to me that his phone app….sky watch or whatever it was, was extremely accurate. I was thankful for this information, because I had no idea where the moon would be rising. The rocket launch was about 2 minutes before the scheduled moonrise. So, I stood in a crowd and stared at the sky with everyone else, as people actually counted down to the expected rocket launch time. And then, there was a red dot in the sky, briefly, and then it was gone. I guess that was it. It was either that, or an airplane. No one seemed sure… and everyone just stood there, still staring into the sky…. Until someone said loudly…. “Wow! Look at the moon!!” Wait…. The moon? I was staring right where that kind stranger had assured me that the moon would be rising and I didn’t see a thing…. Until… I turned around, and there, so far to the left of me, that it was almost behind me…. Was the very large, bright red moon, already higher in the sky than I had hoped for. So much for the extremely accurate phone app. You know, when that guy told me that he sits in his house and watches the space station without even going outside… I should have had my doubts about him. Sigh. So, I took some pretty bad moon shots… and it was already too late… I couldn’t get the moon and the skyline in the same shot the way I have wanted to shoot it for several years now. So, I moved to another spot for Plan B, hoping to get the waving American flag in front of the moon, which is when a woman, assuming I lived locally, approached me about taking school pictures at some school … in Newark. By the time she was done, I had also lost the opportunity for Plan B (which I’m pretty sure would also not have worked out.) Maybe if I had gone last night, I could have gone back tonight and gotten it right. But, hey… at least I got to see that rocket launch!! LOL! Maybe tomorrow….

The photo …. “Remembrance and Rebirth”… a bronze statue of a man holding a lantern and looking across the Hudson River at the site where the World Trade Center stood. Lantern of Hope…. Eagle Rock Reservation on a beautiful, warm, October night!

The first Meteosat Third Generation Imager (MTG-I1) satellite lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 13 December at 21:30 CET.

From geostationary orbit, 36,000 km above the equator, this all-new weather satellite will provide state-of-the art observations of Earth’s atmosphere and realtime monitoring of lightning events, taking weather forecasting to the next level. The satellite carries two completely new instruments: Europe’s first Lightning Imager and a Flexible Combined Imager.

MTG-I1 is the first of six satellites that form the full MTG system, which will provide critical data for weather forecasting over the next 20 years. In full operations, the mission will comprise two MTG-I satellites and one MTG Sounding (MTG-S) satellites working in tandem.

Credits: ESA - M. Pedoussaut

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying the GOES-T spacecraft for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA lifted off on March 1 at 4:38 p.m. EST from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

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Today we went to a low power rocket event at NASA Ames near Mountain View, California. There were several hundred people at the tarmac. Fun event for families with kids.

I processed a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure.

-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, NEX-6, _DSC5061_hdr1bal1b

I shot this 3 minute exposure of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as it launched from Cape Canaveral. The photo was taken on the beach in Vero Beach, Florida which is about 70 miles south of the launch site. This launch released 60 Starlink satellites which will help create a network to deliver broadband internet service to parts of the world that have no access. It was shot using a Tokina fish eye lens. SpaceX is forging a new path as is Flickr.

It's another morning on the Space Coast.

In September 2014, Venture Capitalist Steve Jurvetson invited Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, for a day to watch the XPRS high power rocket launches in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The previous day, Elon and Steve went to see the grounds of the yet to be built Tesla Gigafactory east of Reno. It was an honor meeting Elon Musk, who brings so many positive changes to our world! He has been named Time Magazine's 2021 Person of the Year, well deserved!

Steve demonstrates our cork screw rocket to Elon Musk. My son Alexis (on the right) and I built it out of wine corks. This rocket flies on a G motor, the biggest motor in the mid-power class. We mounted the fins a bit slanted, so that the rocket cork-screws on the way up, which is always a crowd pleaser.

I processed a photographic and a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure, blended them, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.

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-- ƒ/8.0, 33 mm, 1/400 sec, ISO 100, Sony NEX-6, SEL-P1650, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC7410_hdr1pho1bal1d.jpg

-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography

Hmmm, I wasn't quick enough with the shutter. Well at least the smoke shows the aftermath of the rocket launch!

ESA’s latest interplanetary mission, Juice, lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French 09:14 local time/14:14CEST on 14 April 2023 to begin its eight-year journey to Jupiter, where it will study in detail the gas giant planet’s three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Juice – Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer – is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.

Following launch, Juice will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth.

Flight VA260 is the final Ariane 5 flight to carry an ESA mission to space.

Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit

Credits: ESA - M. Pédoussaut

Several people on the beach in Vero Beach, Florida observing a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch 4 astronauts, aboard a Crew Dragon, into orbit. Just over 24 hours later they docked with the International Space Station.

Today we witnessed a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral, something that I thought I would never ever see in my lifetime, an absolutely amazing experience with the excitement from the people around you (thousands) but also the sounds and vibrations although delayed (because of the distance you are from it).

This was not in our plan for our visit to Florida as we only found out about it after we arrived here, now that is pure luck.

#SpaceX shrugged off the weather to send a #Falcon9 rocket to space, this one carrying the #Eutelsat 10B payload.

This was the view of the 9:57pm (ET) Tuesday launch seen from Cocoa Beach and the Banana River.

Not the best launch shot I have ever done, and not the worst.

One of the photos I took of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as it carried four astronauts toward the International Space Station. The launch took place at 5:49 AM and I shot the image from the beach in Vero Beach which is about 65 miles (105km) south of the launch site. This was the first time that SpaceX reused both a first stage rocket and a dragon capsule to send two American, one Japanese, and one French astronauts on their way. The trip to the space station will take about 23 hours.

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard lifted off at 07:47 CEST from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA on 16 November 2022.

The most powerful rocket ever built sent NASA’s Orion spacecraft and ESA’s European Service Module (ESM) to a journey beyond the Moon and back. No crew will be on board Orion this time, and the spacecraft will be controlled by teams on Earth.

ESM provides for all astronauts’ basic needs, such as water, oxygen, nitrogen, temperature control, power and propulsion.

Much like a train engine pulls passenger carriages and supplies power, the European Service Module will take the Orion capsule to its destination and back.

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

ESA’s latest interplanetary mission, Juice, lifted off on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French 09:14 local time/14:14CEST on 14 April 2023 to begin its eight-year journey to Jupiter, where it will study in detail the gas giant planet’s three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Juice – Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer – is humankind’s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter’s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe.

Following launch, Juice will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth.

Flight VA260 is the final Ariane 5 flight to carry an ESA mission to space.

Find out more about Juice in ESA’s launch kit

Credits: ESA - S. Corvaja

Starlink 21 mission. SpaceX launches a Falcon 9 which is carrying 60 Starlink satellites. This is part of an effort by SpaceX to create a space based system of satellites to deliver worldwide access to the internet. The first stage returned safely and landed on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You. This was the 9th flight of that particular first stage booster. So far, all Falcon 9 launches this year have used a previously used first stage booster. I took this photo from the beach at Vero Beach, Florida which is about 65 miles (105 km) south of Cape Canaveral.

#SpaceX sent another batch of #Starlink satellites to orbit Saturday night at 7:32pm (EDT).

It was just after sunset & save for some clouds, the #Falcon9 put on quite a show, especially as the 2nd stage caught the sunlight.

(163-sec exposure from Titusville)

#DeltaIVHeavy #ParkerSolarProbe on 35mm film: An 11 min (+/-) exposure from the NASA Causeway, captured on @FujifilmUS Velvia50 w/ a @CanonUSA A1 SLR.

Film requires patience, but the results, well, you can decide.

Details: ISO50, approximately 11 minute exposure time, f16 on Fuji Velvia50 with a Canon A1 and a 24mm lens.

(Pic: me/@WeReportSpace;processing: @the_darkroom)

Postscript: the roll had images from 3 other launches and a return to port; I'll probably post them over the next few days.

The 230 foot rocket was well over 20 miles down range when I took this from our condo balcony. It was very high and going very fast.

November 13, 2020. ULA supporting NROL-101.

The final flight of the #DeltaIV Medium (aka "single-stick") rocket, 25-seconds off the pad.

I was 12 miles south of the pad for this launch, and there were a couple of clouds between Cocoa Beach and the pad. This was the second cloud the rocket flew behind as it lept toward orbit.

It was a beautiful launch of a rocket that has a 100% mission success rate.

Well done, @ulalaunch

(Pic: me / @wereportspace )