Satellite signatures of the Roman Space Telescope launch

By Scott Bachmeier • 30 August 2026

Multi-panel display of all 16 ABI spectral bands on GOES-19, from 1125-1140 UTC on 30 August

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) images (above) showed signatures of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket booster following the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launch from Kennedy Space Center at 1126 UTC on 30 August 2026.

1 minute after launch, at 1127 UTC, a multi-panel display of imagery from all 16 ABI spectral bands on GOES-19 (below) revealed either a reflective signature (in Visible band 02) or a thermal signature (in Near-Infrared bands 03-06, and Infrared bands 07-16) as the Falcon Heavy rocket was ascending just off the Florida coast.

Multi-panel display of all 16 ABI spectral bands on GOES-19 at 1127 UTC on 30 August, with cyan circles highlighting reflectance or thermal signatures of the Falcon Heavy rocket booster [click to enlarge]

1 minute later, at 1128 UTC, thermal signatures of the rocket booster were apparent in Near-Infrared bands 04-06 and Infrared bands (below). In the 3 Water Vapor spectral bands (08/09/10), a short trail of moisture-rich rocket exhaust was seen immediately behind the leading hot thermal signature of the booster engines.

*Multi-panel display of all 16 ABI spectral bands on GOES-19 at 1128 UTC on 30 August, with cyan circles highlighting thermal signatures of the Falcon Heavy rocket booster [click o enlarge]*

A common practice with Falcon Heavy rockets is to have the 2 side boosters perform a series of boostback burns to slow their descent to make a landing on a floating water platform (or in this case, back to Kennedy Space Center), to enable their recycling for future flights. A signature of dual boostback burns appeared at 1133 UTC in imagery from several of the Near-Infrared and Infrared spectral bands (below).

Multi-panel display of all 16 ABI spectral bands on GOES-19 at 1132 UTC on 30 August, with cyan circles highlighting thermal signatures of the Falcon Heavy side booster boostback burns [click to enlarge]

Many of the aforementioned signatures were displayed in a larger-scale view of 1-minute GOES-19 Rocket Plume RGB images, created using Geo2Grid (below). The hot thermal signature at launch appeared as a cluster of bright red pixels at 1126 UTC; the brighter yellow-green boostback signature appeared at 1132 UTC, After the Falcon Heavy departed from the satellite scene, note how the western portion of the rocket’s trailing moisture plume (pale shades of yellow) was advected slowly northward, while the eastern portion of the moisture plume (which was at a higher altitude) was advected more rapidly southward — an effect of wind shear with height.