This website works best with a newer web browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Microsoft Edge. Internet Explorer is not supported by this website.

CIMSS Satellite Blog

MENU

Satellite signatures of the NASA/SpaceX Crew-6 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 of the ABI spectral bands (above), which displayed the northeast-moving warm thermal signature of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster as the Crew-6 Mission was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 0534 UTC (12:34 AM EST) on 02 March 2023. The low-altitude rocket launch condensation cloud was also evident in imagery from the Infrared bands (07-16), drifting slowly eastward away from the launch site. One or both of these rocket launch signatures were detected by all 16 of the ABI spectral bands, as well as Plume RGB images — although the nighttime reflectance values in Visible bands 01 and 02 were quite small (cursor sample), and difficult to discern using the default Visible enhancement (unless one zoomed in for a much closer view).

GOES-16 images from ABI spectral bands 07-09 along with the Night Plume RGB (below) later displayed a thermal signature of the Falcon 9 Stage 1 entry burn at 0541 UTC well off the coast of South Carolina, which slowed its rate of descent back toward the surface (for a recovery landing on an offshore drone ship).

GOES-16 images from ABI spectral bands 07-09 along with the Night Plume RGB [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

For this Stage 1 entry burn, close-up 16-panel images from each of the 16 ABI spectral bands (below) showed that reflectance and/or thermal signatures were detected by nearly all of the bands (except 13, 14 and 15) — including subtle nighttime reflectance values in Visible bands 01 and 02, as seen in cursor sampling of all 16 bands.

GOES-16 16-panel images showing the Falcon 9 Stage 1 entry burn at 0541 UTC [click to play animated GIF | MP4]

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