Kennedy Space Center — 2016 — The 21st Century Matriarch

We were on bleachers at the Kennedy Space Center’s Saturn V facility to watch the OSIRIS-REx launch on September 8th. OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Idenentification, Security – Regolith Explorer) is a mission to fly to, study, and retrieve a sample from the asteroid Bennu and return the sample to earth. The launch happened shortly after 7 PM at the beginning of the launch window on the 8th and the first day in its launch schedule. The clouds built up in the afternoon but were benign by launch time. The evening was still hot and humid – typical for Florida in early September. We arrived about an hour before the launch and watched the outgassing from the fueling process (the white plume to the right of the rocket).

The slide show below shows my pictures of the first minute of the launch. Even in that short period of time – I had to adjust the zoom to keep the rocket in the frame!

By 3 minutes after launch – only the drifting plume remained.

My husband took my favorite picture of the launch with distinct Atlas and solid rocket plums. Awesome!

Our first day in Florida was spent with check-in as a launch guest, a mission briefing, and touring the Kennedy Space Center. The check-in was at the ATX (Astronaut Training Experience) Center.

It was a busy place with people picking up the packets with a badge/lanyard, information sheets, a paper model, stickers, patches, and pens. We also picked up the tickets for the mission briefing.

We had previously signed up for the 12:30 briefing that would be held in the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center so we headed there as soon as we had our packets. We made arrangements for a bus tour in the afternoon and then had a quick lunch.

After the briefing we boarded the bus for a tour. We were able to see the OSIRIS-REx capsule atop its Atlas rocket (one booster) on the pad. We didn’t get as close as we did for the Maven capsule back in 2013.