Cameras Capture Unique Look at Atlas V, WorldView-4 Flight

A camera attached to the Atlas V rocket when it blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base last week captured key milestones from a unique angle.

United Launch Alliance recently released rocket cam video showing the Atlas V rocket as it climbed away from Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex-3 and the later release of the WorldView-4 satellite.

The rocket blasted off at 10:30 a.m. from the South Base facility after eights weeks of delays due to fires and technical troubles.

Its cargo, the WorldView-4 satellite built by Lockheed Martin Space Company for DigitalGlobe, will collect images of Earth while orbiting in space, continuing a 16-year library. 

Just shy of 5 minutes, the rocket cam footage first captures the flight at the start, showing the California coast as the rocket rises away.

A different camera show the rocket’s first stage falling away, followed by jettison of the rocket’s nose cone, or payload fairing, that was sheltering the satellite.

A short time later, the WorldView-4 satellite floats away while Earth can be seen in the background as the blue marble.

WorldView-4 will orbit Earth every 90 minutes, traveling 17,000 mph and capturing as much as 680,000 square kilometers, or 262,550 square miles, of the Earth's surface daily — the equivalent of the land area of Texas.

Quelle: Noozhawk