This past Sunday night I traveled up to the FDR State Park office to watch a probable once-in-a-lifetime occurence. Over a three hour eleven minute time span I was able to witness a satellite train, a rocket launch, and a spacecraft reentry.
Starlink Satellite Train
On 31 August at 22:21 EDT, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. Onboard were twenty-two Starlink satellites that made up the group 6-13 mission. At 21:00 on 3 September, those Stalinks passed over FDR State Park in their signature satellite train formation.
All of this was predicted by the Heavens Above website, including the satellites passing into eclipse ~30° above the horizon.
Falcon 9 Starlink Launch
One hour forty-seven minutes later, at 22:47, SpaceX launched the Starlink group 6-12 mission from Cape Canaveral using a Falcon 9 rocket. It took ~110 seconds for the rocket to become visible on the horizon.
This was my first time watching a launch from the park office. I knew the general direction the rocket would appear, a compass heading of 138°, but I did not know the exact location. As it turns out, just like Dowdell’s Knob and the Callaway Garden’s Country Store overlook, there is a light source on the horizon that marks the location where a rocket will appear. This will be useful when watching future launches.
Crew-6 Reentry
One hour seventeen minutes after the launch, at 00:04 on 4 September, the Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavor began its reentry interface above the Pacific Ocean south of Mexico. Onboard were the four astronauts of Crew-6 who were returning from their six month mission on the International Space Station.
The reentry became visible to me around 00:09 EDT as the spacecraft was above the Gulf of Mexico. It was visible for one minute fifty seconds of which I was able to record one minute and twenty-seven seconds. Six minutes and twenty seconds after it disappeared from my view it splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean near Jacksonville. In thirteen minutes it had traveled over 1,800 miles.
But That’s Not All…
I brought along the telescope and during the time between events I captured some video of Saturn…
which allowed me to produce this image:
