CORDOVA — Residents of Richmond County were treated to a rare site Thursday evening: a rocket launch carrying a classified Space Force space plane.
The View
The rocket launched from the historic LC-39A — the same launch pad that supported the Saturn V rocket launches of the Apollo program including the famed Apollo 11 mission. It was also the launch site for NASA space shuttles during for the program’s 135 missions. In 2014, NASA leased the pad to SpaceX which now uses it for their own rocket launches like the one Thursday.
Within minutes of launching from Florida, the craft had rocketed its way up the Eastern Seaboard. Shortly after the 8 p.m. launch, the craft was visible in the southeastern sky over the county.
Richmond Countians would have seen a large orange comet-like plume flying through the night sky. If caught early enough, the separation of the side boosters may have been visible as well. The plume was the expanding exhaust from the rocket’s engines. The plume was larger than one might think because the exhaust is able to expand under the low pressure of the upper atmosphere.
This launch from Florida was visible from Richmond County due to its Northeastern trajectory which determines what orbit the spacecraft will be inserted.
The Rocket
The star of the show was SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. The Falcon Heavy is a larger version of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and consists of three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together. SpaceX has become famous for its unique practice of landing orbital class rockets after launch and reusing them. This has significantly lowered the cost of launching and increased the number — or in rocket talk cadence — of launches. This was SpaceX’s 95th orbital launch of 2023, with launch 96 occurring just hours later at the neighboring launch pad. That second launch was a Falcon 9 carrying satellites for the company’s Starlink internet service.
The Payload
The X-37B is an uncrewed space plane that looks superficially like the larger space shuttle. It has small delta wings and lands on a runway when it comes back to earth. The exact use of the spacecraft is classified but it may be used for spying or as a testbed for new technology. Thursday’s launch was the latest in a string of seven flights for the craft. Past flights have lasted years and resemble normal satellites during most of their missions until the end where the mini shuttle lands on a runway like a plane.
The exact purpose of this mission is unknown but given the military nature of the craft, the space plane likely has some defense-related experiments on board.
The online news site NasaSpaceFlight, not affiliated with NASA, reported that the mission’s orbit would carry the craft over several war-torn regions of the world, thus raising speculation it would be used as a platform for intelligence gathering. Whatever its military mission might be, not all of the little shuttle’s missions are so secretive. The craft is also carrying seeds for a NASA experiment that explores the effects of spaceflight on plant seeds.
