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30-second images of the SpaceX/NASA Crew-5 mission launch

By Scott Bachmeier •

GOES-16 images from all 16 ABI spectral bands [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

Overlapping 1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sectors provided GOES-16 (GOES-East) images at 30-second intervals from all 16 ABI spectral bands (above), which displayed the northeast-moving warm thermal signature of a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket booster as the Crew-5 Mission was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 16:00:57 UTC on 05 October 2022. The low-altitude rocket launch condensation cloud was also evident, drifting slowly eastward away from the launch site. One or both of these rocket launch signatures were detected in all 16 of the ABI spectral bands.

30-second GOES-16 Plume RGB images (below) provided a multi-band integrated view that highlighted both the northeast-moving hot thermal signature of the rocket booster (lighter shades of green to yellow), and the low-altitude rocket condensation cloud (darker shades of green) that drifted eastward.

GOES-16 Rocket Plume RGB images [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

In a time-matched comparison of Rocket Plume RGB images from GOES-16 and GOES-17 (GOES-West), valid at 16:02:55 UTC (below), the significant eastward displacement of the brighter yellow rocket thermal signature in the GOES-17 image was due to parallax — resulting from the very large viewing angle from that satellite, especially for such a high-altitude feature (approximately 39 km at that point in time).

Rocket Plume RGB images from GOES-16 and GOES-17, valid at 16:02:55 UTC [click to enlarge]

Categories: GOES-16, GOES-17, Red-Green-Blue (RGB) images, Rocket signatures