Rocket Launch as Seen from the International Space Station
Have you ever seen a rocket launch -- from space?
A close inspection of
the featured time-lapse video
will reveal a rocket rising to Earth orbit as seen from the
International Space Station (ISS).
The Russian
Soyuz-FG rocket was launched in November 2018 from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan, carrying a
Progress MS-10 (also
71P)
module to bring needed supplies to the ISS.
Highlights in the
90-second video (condensing about 15-minutes) include city lights and clouds
visible on the Earth on the lower left, blue and gold bands of
atmospheric airglow
running diagonally across the center,
and distant stars on the upper right that set behind the Earth.
A lower stage can be seen
falling back to Earth
as the robotic supply ship fires its thrusters and begins to
close on the ISS, a
space laboratory that celebrated its
25th anniversary in 2023.
Astronauts
who live aboard the
Earth-orbiting ISS conduct, among more practical duties, numerous science experiments that expand human knowledge and enable
future commercial industry in low Earth orbit.