The 1st Swiss Made commercial satellite from a friend startup (ASTROCAST) has been successfully placed on its polar orbit with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. I was privileged to observe the event at about 4 miles away from the launchpad 4 at Vandenberg AFB, California
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Being my first experience of a rocket launch, I had no idea of what to expect an how many people would make the travel for the event. So I decided to arrive early on site and found that I was well in advance… I could take this night shoot. It looks like something is happening behind the hill. ;-)
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A few hours later, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket appeared, followed by a huge noise about 20 seconds after liftoff.
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The rocket being 70m long, you can easily estimate the flame length !
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I almost had the possibility to see a second rocket launch during the same week.