LRO Launch - More Views
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) launched at 5:32 p.m. EDT Thursday, June 18th, aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The LRO satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.
This page contains several viewpoints of the LRO/LCROSS launch. The first video shows the project team at Goddard Space Flight Center and their preparations for and reaction to the launch. The remaining videos are ten different individual camera feeds of the launch captured by Kennedy Space Center.
To see the full multicamera launch sequence, as well as videos from the time leading up to the launch, see entry #10443.
GSFC Control Rooms
Though the actual Atlas rocket carrying NASA's LRO mission was launched from a site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Mission Operations Control Center (or MOCC) is located at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. It is from the MOCC and Flight Conrol room (also at Goddard) that engineers will actually "fly" the spacecraft into orbit and throughout the mission. This footage shows LRO's Goddard-based flight team on the day of launch (footage with NASA logo in corner is from KSC, but was added for context).
External Rocket Cam
A camera attached externally to the Atlas rocket shows the path from launch pad to orbit (4:3 SD upres).
VIF Level 9
This camera vantage point is from level 9 of the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) where the LRO/LCROSS payload was put atop the Atlas rocket prior to launch.
Fairing Cam
A camera inside the rocket fairing captured this view with LCROSS visible in the foreground before the fairing opened up and revealed the limb of the Earth.
Pad 39A Perimeter
The perimeter camera of KSC's launch pad 39A captured this view of the launch (16x9 HD).
UCS-12
The LRO/LCROSS Launch captured by the UCS-12 camera (4:3 SD upres).
VAB
A camera on the roof of the tall Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) captured this view of launch (16:9 HD).
Press Site
Members of the media watching launch from the KSC press site had a perspective like what this camera, located at the press site, captured (16:9 HD).
UCS-23
The LRO/LCROSS Launch captured by the UCS-23 camera (4:3 SD upres).
Umbilical Cam
This camera captures a close-up of the Atlas umbilicals during the launch (4:3 SD upres).
Tower Cam
This is the view of the launch from the KSC tower cam.
For More Information
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/GSFC/KSC
-
Video editor
- Andrew Freeberg (NASA/GSFC)
-
Producer
- Andrew Freeberg (NASA/GSFC)
-
Videographers
- Michael McClare (HTSI)
- Jamal Smith (HTSI)
Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, August 25, 2009.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:54 PM EDT.