The ABI on NOAA‘s GOES-17 (GOES-West) was able to see the Landsat 9 rocket plume from Vandenberg Space Force base. The plume was most evident on ABI bands 7 (3.9 µm) and 8 (6.2 µm), using the mesoscale sector (1) on September 27, 2021.The same animation as above, but as an animated gif. The 18:15 UTC image. CONUS... Read More

NOAA‘s GOES-16 and GOES-17 ABI observed the Firefly Aerospace’s maiden flight from Vandenberg Air Force base. GOES-16 ABI 16-panel captured the before and after the anomaly (explosion approximately 2.5 minutes after launch). Loop: (animated gif) (mp4).The parallax effect is very evident comparing GOES-17 and GOES-16 ABI views. Loop: (animated gif) (mp4). What is shown is a multi-spectral “rocket plume” RGB. More about... Read More

SpaceX and NASA launched the Crew-2 mission (to the International Space Station) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 0949 UTC or 5:49 am EDT on 23 April 2021 — and overlapping Mesoscale Domain Sectors from GOES-16 (GOES-East) provided images at 30-second intervals (above). Reflectance and/or thermal signatures of the Falcon-9 rocket booster were... Read More

The Falcon 9 rocket that was launched on 4 March did not achieve orbit and re-entered the atmosphere on 26 March at just before 0400 UTC (Correction:  Falcon 9 achieved orbit.  What did not occur as planned was the 2nd stage de-orbit burn  The low orbit of the 2nd stage... Read More