{"id":63343,"date":"2025-03-06T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=63343"},"modified":"2025-03-08T04:42:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T04:42:53","slug":"satellite-signatures-of-the-starship-test-flight-8-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/63343","title":{"rendered":"Satellite signatures of the Starship Test Flight 8 launch"},"content":{"rendered":"

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True Color RGB + Nighttime Microphysics RGB images from GOES-16 and GOES-18 [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>In a sequence of daytime True Color RGB + Nighttime Microphysics RGB images from GOES-16 (GOES-East)<\/em> and GOES-18 (GOES-West) (above)<\/strong><\/em>, signatures of the SpaceX Starship Test Flight 8 launch were seen — the Super Heavy Stage 1 rocket booster condensation cloud cast a long shadow across the water before sunset, as it became sheared by high-altitude winds<\/strong><\/a> over the Starbase launch site near the South Texas coast.<\/p>\n

1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector<\/strong><\/a> GOES-16 daytime True Color RGB + Nighttime Microphysics RGB images (source<\/strong><\/a>) are shown below.<\/p>\n

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1-minute GOES-16 daytime True Color RGB + Nighttime Microphysics RGB images [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>
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16-panel display of all 16 ABI spectral bands from GOES-16, at 1-minute intervals from 2329-2337 UTC [click to play MP4 animation]<\/p><\/div>A 16-panel display of 1-minute GOES-16 images (above)<\/strong><\/em> showed reflectance or thermal signatures from all 16 ABI<\/strong><\/a> spectral bands. It is notable that a thermal signature of the Super Heavy Stage 1 rocket booster was apparent in Near-Infrared and Infrared spectral bands 04-16 at 2333 UTC<\/strong><\/a> — and at 2334 UTC<\/strong><\/a> in bands 08\/09\/10\/16, thermal signatures of (1) the Starship Stage 2 rocket (just after separation from the Stage 1 booster) and (2) the boostback burn of the Stage 1 booster rocket as it began its return to the Starbase launch site.<\/p>\n

A toggle between GOES-16 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 \u00b5m) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m) images at 2336 UTC (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed thermal signatures of the Starship Stage 2 rocket as it was traveling east across the Gulf of Mexico. At that time the rocket had reached altitudes of 70-80 km (where air within the Mesosphere was much less dense, with low ambient pressure) — so the rocket exhaust plume was able to expand outward into more of a curved \u201cboomerang\u201d shape in the Water Vapor image.<\/p>\n

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Toggle between GOES-16 Upper-level Water Vapor (6.2 \u00b5m) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m) images at 2336 UTC [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a sequence of daytime True Color RGB + Nighttime Microphysics RGB images from GOES-16 (GOES-East) and GOES-18 (GOES-West) (above), signatures of the SpaceX Starship Test Flight 8 launch were seen — the Super Heavy Stage 1 rocket booster condensation cloud cast a long shadow across the water before sunset, as it became sheared by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":63348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,114,45,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-goes-16","category-goes-18","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-rocket-signatures"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63343"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63362,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63343\/revisions\/63362"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}