CINCINNATI — Space X Falcon 9 launched from Cape Canaveral this morning at 5:23 a.m. but in a rare turn of events, the rocket could be seen in the Tri-State sky.
How is this possible?
Very dry air and a nearly cloud-free sky between here and northern Florida.
Residents in multiple regions throughout the Tri-State reported seeing lights in the sky around 5:30 a.m., despite the launch being 750 miles away.
We reached out immediately to local astronomer Dean Regas to see if it's even possible to see a rocket launch this many miles away from the site.
"I saw one when I was in the Grand Canyon and it looks just like that," said Regas.
He asked that we confirm it happened in the southern sky and if so, it likely was the rocket launch.
Maineville resident Kurt Smith sent a video to our newsroom, taken around 5:30 a.m.
Close to the horizon, you can see an odd bright light and a glowing tail coming off of it to the right. We zoomed in on the video and put a circle around it to make it that much more obvious.
When I shared the video with Dean he said, "it's the only thing it could be."
He agrees it's a very rare sighting to see it this far away but "the viewing conditions were really good this morning," said Regas.
Another video sent to us from Doug Markley in Foster, Ky. showed the rocket streaking through the sky, its bright tail very visible.
Similar reports came in along the East Coast too, like in Massachusetts.
The SpaceX launch was a mission to perform the first private spacewalk and venture farther than anyone since NASA's Apollo moonshots. If all goes as planned, tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman will become the first private citizen to conduct a spacewalk.
Considered one of the riskiest parts of spaceflight, spacewalks have been the sole realm of professional astronauts since the former Soviet Union popped open the hatch in 1965, closely followed by the U.S. Today, they are routinely done at the International Space Station.
Isaacman, along with a pair of SpaceX engineers and a former Air Force Thunderbirds pilot, launched before dawn aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. The spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday, midway through the five-day flight.
But first the passengers are shooting for way beyond the International Space Station — an altitude of 870 miles, which would surpass the Earth-lapping record set during NASA’s Project Gemini in 1966. Only the 24 Apollo astronauts who flew to the moon have ventured farther.
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