The Spectacular Launch of AEHF-5 - Shadows on Rocket Flames

ULA's AEHF-5 Launch turned out to be a surprisingly spectacular event due to small launch delays leading to a launch into the pre-dawn skies. With the rocket heading towards the sun, and the camera looking back into the rocket exhaust we were able to see he shadow of the booster in flight. Pretty amazing!

[@Orillion123456]

Start of video: "I wasn't really *that* interested in this one." End of video: "BTW I set my alarm to 3am to watch this, including sitting through several delays."

[@nathanaelvetters2684]

That's me lol

[@jpdemer5]

Flying up into the sunlight? Flat-earthers got some 'splaining to do. (They will - and it will be hilarious.)

[@daveb7663]

You can't deny how entertaining those guys can be some times, I mean they try SOOO hard!

[@headcrab4090]

"EXPOSED: Luminous chemtrails on secret military rocket launch."

[@daveb7663]

@ElementHTTP ID Well that explains everything!

[@Turkentorque]

All they need is a tiny bit of magic and a tiny bit of IQ👍🏻

[@jpdemer5]

They def got the tiny bit of IQ, but the magic is missing.

[@Nirawen]

6:10 that high resolution texture pack for KSP is looking great.

[@Blubb5000]

Joe Meredith LoL !

[@martinrages]

Im waiting for someone to get wooooshed

[@georgen.2959]

I am pretty sure that this rocket’s name isn’t KSP

[@martinrages]

George N. r/woooosh

[@witekborowski1410]

What is also worth mentioning: - they finally have cameras on the rocket, that they can stream from, so they do not switch to simulation immediately after take off - the simulation itself finally doesn't look like something from early 90' - they started to use metric system instead of a weird conjunction of imperial and nautical units - the stream itself was something interesting and enjoyable to watch (maybe except for that delay)

[@gcewing]

Also, with cameras on the rocket, they won't have any excuse for things like "Everything is nominal" when the rocket has clearly just blown up...

[@pseudotasuki]

Greg Ewing I think you’re confusing ULA with Arianespace.

[@bencris2bal511]

@@pseudotasuki You're right. For foreign space agencies, English hosts usually have a script, so they can read through. It can be confusing, as when a rocket fails, the agency says "rocket is on a ballistic trajectory," but the English host just goes on like everything is "norminal".

[@TheExoplanetsChannel]

I wish one day I can see one of these launches in person :'(

[@GalileoAV]

I live in Orlando, and can see them from my home. It's pretty spectacular. Never actually seen from a viewing spot out by the cape though

[@t65bx25]

I live near Houston and have like 2 or 3 space centers relatively close, but none perform launches :(

[@RealityIsTheNow]

You can. Just hang around in Florida for a while. I've been watching launches from my back yard since I was a kid.

[@oldfrend]

they also occasionally do sunset/rise launches from vandenberg afb in california. you can see the exhaust trail for hundreds of miles up and down the coast. if you're interested just look for vandenberg's launch schedule online and look for a mission with a launch time around an hour after sunset/before sunrise.

[@safir2241]

Galileo Gaming Can I move in with you?

[@parajacks4]

I saw the original and thought “aw yeah!”. Then this morning I watched and listened to Scott’s narration and said “WOW! That is so cool” He just added several new dimensions to the experience. Thank you Scott for enriching lives.

[@StevenHammons]

@ 2:55, 3:35, 4:14 you can see the ice crystals jettison outward when they meet the exhaust cone! What an Awesome time for rocket enthusiasts, Thank you Scott.

[@alexhatfield2987]

The most aesthetically beautiful launch I've seen. They should frame it and it in an art gallery.

[@aarondavis8943]

That's appropriate because the Atlas rocket itself is a looker.

[@whcolours9995]

How many different new intros will you make Scott? It's as astronomical as those shadows!

[@erictaylor5462]

As many as he wants/.

[@samuraidriver4x4]

Im so glad that his laptop got stolen. (Although not approving anyone stealing his laptop though) It gives so much cool new intros

[@JohnsontheFly]

@@samuraidriver4x4 (you should probably re-word that)

[@milanstevic8424]

@@samuraidriver4x4 admit it that it was you

[@bencris2bal511]

@@samuraidriver4x4 Re-word what you just said. Next time, be careful of what you say, because getting something stolen is not a good thing.

[@TheEpicAppleEater01]

Im loving the FTL intro

[@steamsuhonen9529]

omg i love ben prunty

[@adama7752]

FTL is too dang hard!

[@peregrine3845]

@@adama7752 Really isn't. Where are you getting stuck?

[@tommyfrerking]

I often listen to the FTL soundtrack because it gets stuck in my head! So catchy!

[@sethadkins546]

@@adama7752 You're probably not gonna win until you have like 25 hours total of playtime. On easy.

[@a-fl-man640]

watched the space shuttle launch one morning just before dawn. crystal clear skies between Tampa and Kennedy. was a column of fire until the sun hit it and then it looked like the brightest diamond above a column of fire. impressive to say the least.

[@L1ft0ff]

These kind of launches do not cause car accidents! Inattention does. Don't say that.. This kind of logic will get launches like this banned by republicans...

[@JPerry-jw9ik]

You mean Democrats? Republicans value $ and personal responsibility.

[@humanhiveanomaly]

*Conspiracy hat on*, the delay was intentionally caused by their PR department.

[@Wallyworld30]

Conspiracy guys think these rockets are all fake. Also the earth is flat. This video will give em hell to explain why the sun illuminated it while it's dark at ground level.

[@slartybarfastb3648]

That thought crossed my mind also. "Hey, if we wait another 44 minutes this launch will set off a wave of UFO sightings from Savannah to Miami. Instead of Jacksonville to Palm Beach like normal." It gets SpaceX launches to go viral. Why not ULA? I watched from about 40 miles away and it was possibly the second most stunning launch I've seen, and I grew up here. Most stunning was Falcon 9's first successful landing at the Cape. Nothing is more surreal than the aurora created by the boost back burn firing hot exhaust through the plume of the second stage and the meteor effect of the reentry burn. Jaw dropping spectacle!

[@jaalcaid]

@@Wallyworld30 they will just say that everything is cgi from the government :(

[@Wallyworld30]

@@jaalcaid Kind of hard to stick with that argument when independent KZbinrs have shot the exact same events from a different angle.

[@foxpup]

@@Wallyworld30 Except for those few conspiracies that are true, all conspiracies are fake and there's a lot of them. People who harbor conspiracies are diverse, each soul having his own subset of conspiracy theories, some of which reinforce each other. Just like people aren't always playing with a full deck of cards, they arent always playing with a full set of conspiracies. ... be it Flat Earth, Faked Moonshot, or Space Aliens, the evidence just isn't there to force a specific subset. :-) The diversity is wonderfully amusing actually. :-) (sad too)

[@MariuszGruszkajamaniek]

It was a middle of the day when I watched in Poland. Wasn't very interested in it but I decied to watch anyway. And oh man, it was something!

[@coolguyhmrwt1332]

I was there! It was my first launch, and it was awe inspiring. 10/10 would go again, well worth it.

[@Odd_Taxi_epi04]

With this burn to depletion, how many years will that upper stage remain in space? Or it did some latter burn to deorbit or to a graveyard orbit?

[@r0cketplumber]

The burn to depletion looks like it left the Centaur in a roughly 20,000 km x 46,000 km graveyard orbit below geosynch, but with a lifetime of millennia. It's well out of the way.

[@DJCorbin]

#FTLIntro I love this and the rotating intros. Please consider a Let's Play of FTL

[@fiveoneecho]

This and seeing two boosters land at the same time are my two favorite pieces of rocket rocket footage shot in my lifetime.

[@AbbreviatedReviews]

That FTL bit gave me a slight adrenaline rush... I think I need to play it again.

[@Cosm1c_69]

Yes. Those tunes are addictidring :)

[@AkantorJojo]

Insta like after the into

[@charlie_lees]

Such an interesting and informative video Scott. Loved the explanations behind the stunning launch visuals.

[@SpecialEDy]

I had a friend post a video of the launch they recorded while driving to work, they were freaked out. Replied to their video with a link to my boy Scott Manley's video on the SpaceX launch over LA at dusk.

[@gtbigdog3507]

Special EDy I saw that from my house.

[@Wallyworld30]

Flat earthers will have a hell of a time explaining why the sun was illuminating the rocket when it was still dark on earth.

[@SpydersByte]

they'll just keep screaming "refraction!" and "cgi!" at you until you realize there's no point in arguing with those idiots.

[@JeffreyBue_imtxsmoke]

by luck... I just caught this launch because of the delays.

[@xepa273]

Same story for me

[@stevenherzfeld3350]

Same for me from St. Petersburg, FL.

[@allegiant804-floridaaviati5]

I saw this launch about 75 miles southeast of the launch site. The exhaust gasses sure were spectacular, and I was surprised that I could actually see the SRBs and the fairings tumbling after separation. Definitely the best launch I’ve seen since the shuttle days.

[@nicholasn.2883]

God dammit. It was like 5 am, so I thought it would be stupid to try to go outside and see it. :(

[@erictaylor5462]

I did get up to see it, and saw nothing.

[@liamcoddington5712]

I slept in on accident... );

[@crispy9175]

I forgot it got bumped and almost slept through it. Rushed outside just after it hit sunlight. It was an amazing sight. Best one ive seen in person yet.

[@kierancalder8573]

Nicholas Nelson Luckily there were cameras😄

[@Nirawen]

I watched it in person and it was truly awe-inspiring. Although I do live by an airport in the UK.. .. and it did look a lot like a commercial airliner. Still, awe-inspiring.

[@vedritmathias9193]

Scott, you got an immediate Like from me for the FTL: Faster Than Light intro

[@spider0804]

The left fairing on seperation falls over and rolls off the rocket, suprised they don't worry about it impacting anything.

[@Tiwack01]

The worry is there but it still wouldn't do much if anything. It's flimsy and a flexible piece at that point compared to anything it might hit. The rocket keeps accelerating sucking the fairing into it through the thin air flow that's still present.

[@spider0804]

@@Tiwack01 Well if a chunk of ice can kill a space shuttle I figure a fairing that weighs alot more can kill a rocket.

[@gsaunds100]

It wasn’t ice, it was freaking styrofoam! That light enough for you?

[@spider0804]

@@gsaunds100 The fairings?

[@Tiwack01]

@@spider0804 Heatshields are vulnerable and will always be softspots susceptible to damage. Luckily nothing like that exists on unmanned rockets.

[@magellan6108]

There sure were a lot of folks in FL freaking out about this. Aliens and chem trails seemed to be the favored suspects by some. An Atlas rocket launch was decidedly the sane answer to the spectacle.

[@bobbykogos8174]

As if Scott could be any more perfect, he hits us with the FTL nod. 🙏🏻

[@CalgarGTX]

Looking forward to the cavemen luddites trying to explain that CGI

[@cdw2468]

It just is, man! The government is hiding this tech from the movie industry so they can keep us fooled about flat earth. If the movie cgi gets too real, we might catch onto their grift

[@TheOneWhoMightBe]

We should make it a law that all rocket launches are done just before dawn or just after dusk. :)

[@coltsfan79]

To do the ones at dusk the rocket would have to fly west in order to chase the sun to get the same effect, fortunately Vandenburg AFB in southern Calif mostly launches to the west and I have been fortunate to of seen a few launches right after dusk even though I live about 500 miles north.

[@stevenf1678]

@@coltsfan79 Most california launches are to the south for a polar orbit. Luaches to eh west are typically not done be rocket has to burn longer to make up for the rotation or the earth. Launches to the east are typically done because the earths rotation adds a littlest of velocity to the rocket at launch.

[@coltsfan79]

@@stevenf1678 there's a big BUT in this equation, because Vandenberg is an AFB they also test launch ballistic missile's and many of the targets are to the west in the Pacific ocean

[@Pants4096]

If they so completely exhausted the fuel on the upper stage, how did they dispose of it later? Would RCS have enough delta-V to nudge it up into a graveyard orbit? Just how "crowded" is it up in the Clarke belt nowadays?

[@jackgibbons6013]

This is exactly what I was thinking as well!! Would love to know the answer

[@timmyturner6818]

I saw this launch completely on accident on my way to work. I saw a red dot rising above the houses in my neighborhood, it took me a second to realize what I was seeing. I live on the west coast of Florida near Tampa. Once it got high enough and the exhaust was illuminated by the rising sun the trail was so bright. It was so cool to witness. I got a few crummy pictures of it. I did stop to take them of course. It was my first rocket launch. I just wish I was more prepared for it.

[@Ayronlawl]

That sad smiley on the fairing at 3:50

[@mcpheonixx]

I live about an hour south of the Cape. I saw the launch as I pulled into the parking at work. It was a stunning launch! The best I've ever seen from the Cape!

[@antonybronco4463]

3:50 look at the "fire" on the fairing, there's a ._.

[@g_glop]

How did(?) ULA prevent the upper stage from becoming space-junk? Without any fuel it cannot deorbit or move to a graveyard orbit.

[@scottmanley]

It's becoming space junk.

[@pskale]

@@scottmanley - How long will it stay in orbit? Hundreds of years? Are such spent second stages a risk to other satellites?

[@OCinneide]

@@pskale I think it's in a low enough orbit it'll burn up quick

[@testfortester7131]

Is this supposed to be a jab at this launch? I’m sure there’s going to be hundreds of items launched left as space junk continually for decades to come

[@keco185]

Caellum Kennedy at the very least, I would assume it’s very elliptical. The perigee will probably pass through some rarified atmosphere on each pass.

[@donjones4719]

Thought it would be a mild interesting launch-from-pad video, so didn't watch the original. Seeing it through your eyes is a totally different experience. Wow! Thank you for sharing your eyes and brain, Scott.

[@budgiefriend]

Well said.

[@hoi264]

So the second stage is stuck in geo stationary orbit? No deorbit burn possible?

[@gordonrichardson2972]

Throughout the space age, the second stage has often followed the payload into its final orbit. Deorbiting only works for some trajectories, and uses a lot of fuel.

[@normalviewer740]

Scott should make a public fundraiser to put a small sat into orbit

[@baileyharrison1030]

It'd probably be the largest online fundraiser ever. Sattellites cost from $50,000,000 to $400,000,000 to make and put into orbit.

[@jamesdriscoll9405]

@@baileyharrison1030 10,000 USD to 500,000 USD for a cube sat

[@TridiverParanormal]

I live about 30 miles south of the cape and have seen many launches. I was just going to watch the webcast but my dog insisted on going outside right at liftoff so I was able to see the exhaust plume being lit by the sun. Definitely one of the most spectacular launches I have seen.

[@Astronomy_Live]

At 3:49 in my ground based view you can see the "shadow" caused by the payload fairings blocking the exhaust as you mentioned. Thanks for that, I hadn't noticed that detail before. Immediately after that you can see how the exhaust caused the fairings to tumble in two different patterns, with the right side fairing presenting itself side-ways to my telescope such that you can actually still resolve it as an extended shape. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oJm6p2ujq9x8r68

[@ConfusedNyan]

That first-stage plume in the upper atmosphere was one of the most gorgeous sights during a rocket launch I've ever seen. The sunlight illumination was probably what made it look so nice. This needs to happen during a SpaceX launch.

[@wierdalien1]

It has

[@blastfiendsunite420]

@@wierdalien1 Beat me to it by one minute haha

[@ConfusedNyan]

Guess I'll have to see the back catalog of launches to see this. :3

[@blastfiendsunite420]

@@ConfusedNyan It was CRS-15 if you want to find more!

[@chrissavage5966]

What I found really worrying was the amount of people living in Florida (for whom rocket launches really shouldn't come as a surprise) who had no idea what it was. Oh dear.....

[@GuckerAndi]

I also love the footage, because the pixel errors at 3:50 form a smiley at the tip of the fairing. Good by little fairing.

[@Quizitax]

Don't forget the -.- just before it on the left!

[@ASLUHLUHC3]

I thought Scott added that in haha

[@christophergammon6670]

Watched and photographed this from my back about forty-four miles from the pad. One of the perks of living in Central Florida!

[@Mr_Bartt]

- It's a plane! - it's a bird! - No, it's a jellyfish in the upper atmosphere!

[@YukonK9]

If you make a video abd explain all this just on rocket exahust, you were truly impressed

[@fred_derf]

For me I don't see anything beating the Saturn V launch video, but this was very, very cool. Thanks Scott.

[@Merecir]

Not even Starship on top of a superheavy destined for Mars?

[@fred_derf]

@@Merecir We'll see. There's something magical about the first, and the first for me was the Saturn V.

[@BrokenLifeCycle]

Not even double landings of a Falcon Heavy and the funny fails of the cursed center core?

[@jeffvader811]

@@BrokenLifeCycle Falcon Heavy was cool, but its hard to beat a condensation covered Saturn V rising out of it's smoke plume, except maybe a superheavy booster landing.

[@fred_derf]

@@BrokenLifeCycle, writes _"Not even double landings of a Falcon Heavy and the funny fails of the cursed center core?" Don't get me wrong, that stuff is super-cool, it's off the charts awesome and I'm blown away by it all -- but it doesn't beat the awe that six year old me had watching the Saturn V launch live on TV.

[@tommysparks2705]

Excellent video and commentary! Cheers!

[@Coastfog]

Anti-scottish automatically generated subtitles be like "Oh it's got Magli here"

[@waedi73]

Wow what a fantastic video ! Nice new intro and then this outstanding super film of rocket that blow me away ! Thank you very much !

[@RawSpaceVideos]

Great job noticing all that detail!

[@ugowar]

Never mind the plume illumination, that was the biggest snowstorm of particles I've ever seen come off of an Atlas V. I wonder if that was ice coming off of the CCB tanks (seems unlikely as the particle release rate was pretty much constant) or the RL-10 drain/purge LOX/LH2 valve was responsible for all of this?

[@mikemathews9277]

Hey Scott I’ve been curious about the Cameras they use on the Rockets and how the system works as far as getting the signal out to transmit for viewers to see.

[@Kualinar]

The way the fairing flexes is very impressive. It goes from an 180° arc to almost 270°.

[@jammer2isme]

i liked the homemade holding the x-wing intro, but understand that someone might have gotten cranky and sicc'ed a lawyer on em eventually.... but what about the outro? a pic of a round grey surface?.... LEM landing on the Manley?

[@philipwhiuk]

Thanks for the highlights vid - spectacular footage. Congrats to ULA

[@Gerard1971]

That was spectacular indeed. Ironic that U.S. Air Force satellites are being put in to GEO with Russian built engines. :-) I like that ULA shows the apogee altitude as live data, wish SpaceX would do that too. However, I don't like they don't show speed and that we didn't get to see the third firing of the upper stage , but that may have been challenging since it was at 35297 km altitude. According to the launch booklet the perigree after the third burn would have been 14435 km. I'm also wondering, why any GEO sat operator wouldn't want this kind of flight profile?

[@jasont.9559]

One of the last shuttle missions, Atlantis I believe, was like this. It was one of the most spectacular sights I've ever seen.

[@AaaAaa-ly3on]

...Well, if even nice intelligent, well educated and a bit romantic people like you, even when observing beautiful rare human achievements in space still thinking about war and evil... -Humanity definitely SCREWED... Bigly!.. :( We are, still, just very smart animals, after all...

[@TheTadewoosh]

Scott, can You make a video about the thrust vectoring in rocket engines? Apart from verniers :) What types of actuators are used (hydraulic, electric) What is actually gimballed: the nozzle (as in SRBs), the whole engine with turbopump assembly? How do they deal with the fuel lines being bent/rotated? This might be a very interesting topic for what KSP doesn't teach us :)

[@n7565j]

I saw the last Apollo launch, (although I was 7 and was across the state in Crystal River but my wonderful mother got us up and walked us to the end of our driveway so we could see the only night/last Apollo launch... Thank you mom :-) I also witnessed a Shuttle launch from the side of the road, (not sure how close we were but we could "feel" the launch. Anyone who's witnessed a launch knows what I mean ;-) But this was a really awesome launch with loads of cool stuff!!! :-) Thanks for sharing Mr Manley!!!

[@CoronaKevo]

I was watching this launch from 100 miles away. I got a video of this launch. And I was confused by the early fairing I thought it was the first stage separating, but it wasn't, it was the fairing separating

[@jefflackey9366]

I wrote the original Minimum Residual Shutdown software for Atlas Centaur back in the Atlas I & II days before GD sold the division. I doubt I'd recognize ULA's code today but even so, it's exciting to know the concept is still going strong and that they are using it to squeeze every last bit of performance out of the Centaur.

[@waveydaveyav8r442]

I was in Okeechobee back in the Summer of 2015, and my job at the time required that I get up at 0430. I was taking a break, and walked outside in perfect timing to see a failed launch of something make the most beautiful noctilucent clouds, and from my perspective, the trail was in the shadow of a heart. Great video, Scott!

[@ProperLogicalDebate]

Could you do these in Kerbal? Using a X-15 or SR-71 with no fuel limits & with a rocket, starting off from the Moon come to Earth grazing the atmosphere & bleeding with each orbit till you become a very fast airplane/glider & land? Using the SR-71 with no fuel limits & a rocket ability in space take off from the ground & go as fast & high as you can since there is no fuel limit till you are way above normal publicized flight levels. Then invert & go faster using inverted lift to keep you in the air till you obtain escape velocity at which you go back into normal attitude & rise up till there isn't enough, even at your much greater speed, air to keep the engines going. At that time use the rocket to circularize your orbit.

[@Sinnistering]

This gives me solar eclipse vibes, except manmade. Some people might interpret "manmade" as "less than" but it's not. It's a different type of awe. It's the awe of the thousands of generations of ingenuity and knowledge that we've built upon, it's awe that we are capable of touching the skies--and not just once, but regularly enough that sometimes they line up with the time of day to produce such spectacular effects. People, as a collective, are freaking awesome.

[@WacKEDmaN]

cool breakdown Scott... i watched the launch and thought it was a bit boring... i did say to mate tho that there would be a few "UFO" reports in the area when the exhaust was being sunlit!.. the booster and faring seperations looked pritty good, nice to see the detail in the slowed footage!

[@TinaLynn]

That's pretty cool, thanks for sharing. :)

[@robguyatt9602]

Hey Scott, your comment re these events visible for hundreds of km reminds me of back in the 60s when rockets were launched from Woomera in Sth Australia. I live about 450km SE of the launch sites and recall seeing trails in the NE sky. Pretty awesome for a rocket loving kid to actually see some action from his back yard in the dark of the evening. As I understand it these were sounding rockets doing upper atmosphere research.

[@RockinRobbins13]

The other thing that was impressive was the view straight back along the booster on launch where they got the best I've seen view of the incredible amount of ice falling off the booster. That is just beautiful. And it has been deadly.

[@littlesteve855]

"Oh its got magli" thats a new one. Well done youtube subtitles, well done

[@captainemeritus5927]

It was a stunning launch. Unfortunately, it all made a $140 Million, expendable splash in the ocean. But hey, the Russian Communists will gladly sell us a few more motors for the "new" Atlas rocket.

[@TheCebulon]

Thanks for covering the launch. Some other channels (no names here :-) sadly did not cover or mention it. It was very boring at the first 30 minutes due to the hold. They should have shown the videos of after the launch in this time. But, man, that was a spectacular start! Thanks gor pointing out all the details I missed. Greetings from Munich, Tom.

[@V14-x6n]

Well, I suppose the spectacular launch in some way compensates how much this... thing costs to launch, especially when the Air Force uses taxpayer dollars to pay for it and Putin gets a good chunk of it for his RD-180s.

[@AWZool]

Is that ship in the intro from FTL? This was the most beautiful launch I've ever seen btw!

[@SpydersByte]

yup it is

[@mrkidofminecraft]

Hey hey. I work for the company that builds the R68 for that rocket. It's the trilegged thing that sits where the second stage is, prior to stage separation.

[@i_shoot_stuff]

Yes Judge, it went exactly like Mr Manley said, the rocket launch caused me to crash my car.

[@MinecraftXXXXL]

Really?

[@MortalMostly]

It's nice to see spectacular launches outside of SpaceX launches. I still remember the F9 launch out of vandenburg that had the incredible blue jets shooting out like a choreographed dance. TLDR I love nighttime launches

[@user-bo8yt4uc8b]

Would it be possible to put a Centaur upper stage on a Falcon heavy if for example NASA/US government needed really powerful rocket with efficient upper stage?

[@dhargarten]

Is it possible that Atlas is using cork as a thermal protection on the fairing? As cork ablates from heat flux, it generates tiny particles like what you see in the aft looking camera prior to fairing separation. After fairing sep, the image becomes much "cleaner". Also, the cloud of particles coming down right after fairing separation might be due to the outermost layer of charred cork getting shaken off from the separation actuation shock (probably frangible bolts / nuts and pushers).

[@matttownsend7119]

Ice crystals falling off the booster body (presumably) illustrate the local airflow. Starting from when the sun starts illuminating the flow, a significant proportion of these specs seem to be moving at right angles to the rocket body (eg 1:38) instead of straight down the body as would be expected for the rocket being driven at zero degrees angle of attack. Does the rocket have an angle of attack to improve altitude gain while in the atmosphere?

[@stevenherzfeld3350]

I was lucky to catch it while driving across the Howard Franklin bridge over Tampa Bay. Luckily, I was the passenger in the car, so I didn’t have to pay attention to the road.

[@theveryground3610]

I was just empathizing with someone over how little space we can afford to exist in. I share a space with two strangers over three storeys. It's disgusting! They've stolen our space and they never make us rich, and they invented the solar system, for you to believe in. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that can see anything at all!

[@seriouslyyoujest1771]

If it wasn’t for the submersible implosion, I doubt I would have ever found your channel. Now I get to see prior posts, and new posts! Great content delivery!

[@kevinganus4468]

I live south of Tampa and luckily leave for work around 6:15 in the morning. Caught the launch just before booster separation in the eastern sky while walking to my car. Didn't even know their was a launch, but it was the most stunning sight next to seeing the random green meteors streaming in the night sky.

[@LittleWapiti]

Here's a different view of the launch from a trucking youtuber. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oYm9gKmJaridfrs You talked about drivers seeing it and stopping to watch and that's what they did. They didn't know what it was initially but they then figured out it must be a space launch.

[@IbakonFerba]

Damn, I love volumetric shadows. And on Rocket exhaust they are like ten million times cooler yet!

[@TheYoyozo]

I saw it from about 45 miles away and it was spectacular!

[@amyshaw893]

jesus, that intro scared me. "oh fuck my doors! pause everything, why arent my weapons charging? why is my oxygen room on fire?"

[@kentnebergall3156]

It looks like the exhaust plume actually flips the fairing past 180 degrees flat and bends it the other way, basically inside out at the bottom, for a second when it hits the plume.

[@rhodexa]

Scott Manley: “Hello, Scott Manley here” KZbin Captions: “Oh, it's got Magli, here”

[@aBoogivogi]

shamelessly steeling Ben Prunty's great music without even linking to his bandcamp page. Shame on you Mr Manley.

[@Raptorman0909]

The footage was right up there with the December 2017 launch out of Vandenburg of the SpaceX Iridium 4 that was about 40 minutes after sunset. Still hard to top the 2 boosters of the Iridium 4 lighting up the sky with that awesome display.

[@Galactis1]

Dawn launches are beautiful. like Orion launch.

[@Deathdude4000]

Huh I noticed that the fairing also was flexing inward as it was passing through the exhaust cloud. I wonder if spacex has noticed that as well when they deploy their fairing especially if it is strong enough to permanently warp the fairing.

[@JimFeig]

Couldn't they just allow the remaining fuel to out gas into space for a bit more push after it gets too low to burn.

[@MarkJacksonGaming]

Those RD-180 Engines ... with an 's' plural. Heh, love ya Scott, just have to give you a little guff :D Thumbs up.

[@gtbigdog3507]

Mark Jackson two nozzles but one set of pumps so one engine

[@MarkJacksonGaming]

@@gtbigdog3507 -- Yeah, that was my point. One engine, closed system, two bell housings. But Scott said 'those' and 'engines.' Wanted to give him a little crap for that :)

[@gtbigdog3507]

Mark Jackson I see

[@annando]

When they now burned all fuel until the stage shut down, does this mean that this stage won't perform some deorbit actions? So: Will it stay in some elliptical orbit for a longer time?