
Time-lapse video of a rocket launch seen from space - slyall
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/amazing-time-lapse-video-of-a-rocket-launch-seen-from-space
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viewtransform
Direct link to video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJy1u-N3NY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJy1u-N3NY0)

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amatecha
Exactly what I came to the comments section to post. Huge pet peeve of mine is
"articles" that are just a YouTube video with some redundant commentary
underneath that offers zero value beyond the video itself.

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jcurbo
In this case, though, I don't mind because Phil Plait is a well known science
communicator whose articles actually add useful context. I don't mind that his
article is linked (although I did go straight to the video first, but I am not
the target audience for the commentary).

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jere
Pardon my extreme ignorance, but what is the greenish/yellowish band?

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lisper
That's not ignorance, that's curiosity. And it's nothing to be ashamed of.

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system2
It is really hard to post a comment without being afraid of being ridiculed
these days.

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miltondts
Reminds me of this video of the cameras on a booster during launch and
reentry.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCOyOvOw5c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aCOyOvOw5c)

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system2
This one is incredible.

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JorgeGT
More timelapses from the Crew Earth Observation programs are available here,
along the raw frames:
[https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/BeyondThePhotography/CrewEarthObser...](https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/BeyondThePhotography/CrewEarthObservationsVideos/)
(remember to click in the map to find all the available videos at each region,
there are a lot more than those of the landing page)

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johnchristopher
What are the red blinking lights that enter the view at 1:10 ? It seems huge.

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daviding
From the video comments the author noticed these and tracked them down. They
seem to be power lines and a huge wind generation project in China:

"I asked myself exactly the same thing when editing the video.

I spent several time on Google Earth and I found it's something around the
city of Zalantun (Inner Mongolia); in all likelihood, the red lights are
mounted on huge power-line trusses or wind turbines. For example, look at this
coordinates for power-lines: 47.761390, 123.026970 And wind turbines here:
47.5641695, 122.9092991﻿"

[https://goo.gl/maps/jegbbvmmuV92](https://goo.gl/maps/jegbbvmmuV92)

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jcims
If you go to isstracker.com/historical and search for the time 2018-11-16
18:25:44+0000 you'll see the ISS right above this area. Pretty interesting.

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johnchristopher
There's a problem with the google maps API key for that website :/.

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streamer45
Amazing! Why does it look so much like computer graphics? I would't expect to
see it like that with my own eyes.

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nabla9
Lack of ambient light and atmospheric attenuation. Significantly more direct
light vs indirect light.

If you fly at 35,000 ft the horizon is at 221.3 miles and most of it is dense
air. If you look directly downwards from ISS there is less than ten miles of
thick atmosphere between the camera and the target.

If you do ray tracing from single light source with few objects and without
effects that simulate atmosphere you simulate how the scene looks in vacuum.

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zeristor
I imagine the launch was timed so that this video could be taken. I doubt it’s
just coincidence.

Or perhaps they’re launching so the vehicle will end up in orbit close to the
ISS and not have to take so long, I believe they’re doing with this with
manned launches so they can dock quite quickly.

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ceejayoz
They've been playing with quick launch-to-dock launches lately, so I doubt
they did it just for the video.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_MS-09](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_MS-09)

> NASA confirmed on June 28 that if Progress MS-09 launches on July 9, it will
> attempt a super fast-tracked rendezvous with the Station, docking to the ISS
> just 3 hours (2 orbits) after launch - making it the fastest orbital
> rendezvous ever-attempted with the Station.

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HenryBemis
If I remember correctly, ISS makes a full circle of Earth every 90 minutes.
Having planned the lift of with 45mins lag/difference would make it "so much"
more difficult/challenging/risky to connect. And I guess every second counts
when you're up there.

I've seen many videos of lift-offs etc (plus I'm huge Star Trek fan), but this
one, made me hold my breath for a good 45 seconds (thank you yoga!)

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fbender
The topic here is phasing. The two orbit approach requires exact alignment of
orbital path and correct phasing, which both translate to an exact point in
time when you need to launch the rocket (instantaneous launch window, i.e.
when you delay by a second you need to scrub the launch). That window does not
repeat every ~90 minutes (i.e. orbital period), since the ground track of the
ISS moves West (relative to Earth‘s surface). It does repeat roughly every
~24hrs (not quite true and hence you cannot launch every day of the year), so
you can re-attempt the next day only.

For the longer approaches, the rocket launches with an offset of several (tens
of) minutes of that instantaneous launch window (that mostly means you have a
launch window of several minutes, i.e. short delays do not abort your launch),
so the spacecraft comes up significantly „in front of“ or „behind“ the ISS. As
with the fast approach, the spacecraft will still not launch into the same
orbit (i.e. mostly lower and more elliptical than the ISS orbit). But this is
more important for the slow approach: Due to orbit dynamics, the difference in
orbit will make you „catch“ up with the other space vehicle over time – this
is what is called „phasing“. When you’ve aligned the phases, you raise/align
the spacecraft’s orbit to the ISS and are thus very close and in final
approach.

If your phase is not well aligned at orbit insertion (i.e. just after the
launch), you need to do more and thus longer phasing. I.e. the bottom line is
that you need a high precision launch, precise navigation sensors & enough
computational power on the rocket and spacecraft to be able to do a fast
approach in 2-3 orbits, plus the ISS orbit must align very well with your
launch site at launch time. It is simply more complex and thus more risky as
the slow approach, but then again you are faster if everything works out
perfectly. The safer bet is the slow approach, though, as it gives you more
margin and more time to fix any issues that arise.

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cs702
Thank you for posting this.

Watching it elicited in me a sense of _awe and wonder_ at both human ingenuity
and the almost unimaginable scale of the universe.

I love coming across postings like this one on HN!

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jacquesm
That is an amazing video, the way those cities roll away under the camera, at
any point in time you are looking at a few hundred million people at the same
time.

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joatmon-snoo
For me, that was hands-down the craziest part of this video. I've seen the
numbers for the velocity of orbiting bodies, but seeing just how quickly the
camera was moving - wow.

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ridgeguy
Yeah, even though it's a time lapse, it conveys pretty well the fact that the
ISS is going 5. miles. every. second.

If I left my home right now at that speed for San Francisco (~36 miles), I'd
be ready to park in ~ 7 seconds.

Most of the universe operates at velocities and under conditions we can barely
imagine.

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yetihehe
Relevant xkcd, [https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/)

> Let's imagine what it would look like if you were speed-walking across the
> Earth's surface at 8 km/s.

> To get a better sense of the pace at which you're traveling, let's use the
> beat of a song to mark the passage of time.[9] suppose you started playing
> the 1988 song by The Proclaimers, I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles). That song is
> about 131.9 beats per minute, so imagine that with every beat of the song,
> you move forward more than two miles.

> In the time it took to sing the first line of the chorus, you could walk
> from the Statue of Liberty all the way to the Bronx.

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superasn
Watching the earth from above like this always reminds me of what Carl Sagan
used to say about it:

"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building
experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human
conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our
responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and
cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

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garren
I think this is synonymous with the “overview effect”[0] that astronauts
experience (or at least as close as one might get without being in space). If
only we could send half of congress to space...

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect)

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trhway
if it comes, the last day of our civilization with thousands of ICBM launching
is going to look spectacular.

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kakarot
I was thinking the same thing when I saw the smoke plume. Imagine watching
hundreds of those plumes litter the sky from above.

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gardaani
Iron Sky End Sequence tries to show how those plumes would look like.
Although, there's only a handful of them.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvtxFnG9pD8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvtxFnG9pD8)

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drewmol
Thanks, awe inspiring video!

>When you compress a gas it heats up, and eventually the compression is so
violent that that air heats up enough to start vaporizing the booster.

I don't think this is an accurate description of what happens on re-entry.

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monochromatic
It actually is. People call it friction, but that’s not right. It’s adiabatic
compression heating.

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ThenAsNow
> It’s adiabatic compression heating.

If we're being pedantic (and I don't mean that pejoratively), this would have
been more correct if you'd left out "adiabatic". If gasdynamic compression
heating is being induced by a fast-moving body in the open atmosphere, it's
not strictly adiabatic.

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thegabez
Imagine what an observing alien species might be thinking as they watch this.

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mirimir
For some, "Cool!". For others, "What's the ETA on those impactors?".

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thegabez
I'd imagine it'd be like watching a moldy blueberry shoot a spore... "Whoa,
thats pretty cool but I better toss this thing in the garbage before someone
gets sick."

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harshulpandav
0:49 Something that we won't see for SpaceX rockets.﻿

[https://youtu.be/aJy1u-N3NY0?t=49](https://youtu.be/aJy1u-N3NY0?t=49)

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NikolaeVarius
Except of course, on failures of the launch or a purposeful non-recoverable
mission

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ape4
Of course its just a dot most of the time. Unlike every sci-fi movie / tv
show.

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coldtea
Well, in sci-fi movies/tv-shows they're supposed to be closer.

If the ISS was much closer (which happens, when the crew finally connects), it
wouldn't be a dot.

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Yetanfou
No crew in this one, it is a Progress [1] freighter.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_(spacecraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_\(spacecraft\))

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MRD85
This is absolutely beautiful, it's exactly what I needed to see tonight.

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igravious
Dear lord, awe inspiring.

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yahyaheee
Where are the turtles?

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dylan604
They're all the way down

