![\"30-second](\"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/images\/2020\/11\/201115_goes16_16spectralBands_SpaceX_launch_anim.gif\")
<\/a>30-second images from all 16 ABI spectral bands of GOES-16 [click to play animation | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>Overlapping 1-minute\u00a0Mesoscale Domain Sectors<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0provided 30-second images from all 16 ABI<\/strong><\/a> spectral bands of GOES-16 (GOES-East)<\/em> — which showed signatures of the launch of the SpaceX<\/strong><\/a> Falcon 9 rocket (carrying the Crew Dragon mission) shortly after sunset on 15 November 2020<\/strong><\/a> (above)<\/strong><\/em>. Moving rapidly northeastward was the thermal signature of air that was super-heated by the rocket exhaust, evident in all of the Near-Infrared bands (3-6) and Infrared bands (7-16) — in addition to a separate signature of the low-altitude booster rocket condensation cloud that was seen in all of the Infrared bands (drifting slowly eastward offshore, away from the launch site).<\/p>\n Even though a dim signature was not obvious in the Visible bands (1, 2), AWIPS cursor sampling of reflectance values from GOES-16 Bands 1, 2 and 3 at 0027 UTC (below)<\/strong> <\/em>revealed small values (0.1%) for those two spectral bands at the location of the brightest Band 3 pixel (near the launch site).<\/p>\n Cursor sampling of reflectance values from GOES-16 Bands 1, 2 and 3 at 0027 UTC [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>In a zoomed-in comparison of GOES-16 Visible and Near-Infrared spectral bands (below)<\/strong>,<\/em> a special enhancement was used to enhance reflectance — obvious rocket booster signatures were apparent in the Near-Infrared bands (3-6), and a small bright pixel was even seen in the Band 2 Visible imagery during the ~1.5 minutes following the 0027 UTC launch.<\/p>\n GOES-16 Visible and Near-Infrared spectral bands [click to play animation | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>A 16-panel display of all GOES-16 ABI spectral bands from 0026-0031 UTC is shown below.<\/p>\n 16-panel display of all GOES-16 ABI spectral bands, 0026-0031 UTC [click to play animation]<\/p><\/div>A GOES-17 (GOES-West)<\/em> Mesoscale Sector was also positioned over the launch area — in a comparison of 1-minute GOES-17 and 30-second GOES-16 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 \u00b5m<\/em><\/strong><\/a>) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m<\/em><\/strong><\/a>) images (below)<\/strong>,<\/em> the rocket booster engine thermal signature was prominent during the first 2 minutes post-launch. The images are displayed in the native projection of each satellite.<\/p>\n Upper-level Water Vapor images (top panels)<\/em> and Shortwave Infrared images (bottom panels)<\/em> from GOES-17 (left)<\/em> and GOES-16 (right)<\/em> [click to play animation | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>Larger-scale views of Shortwave Infrared and Water Vapor images from GOES-16 and GOES-17 are shown below (credit: Tim Schmit, NOAA\/NESDIS\/CIMSS @GOESguy<\/strong><\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>