Alpha Scorpii
Aka Antares. It is the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, and the moniker chosen by Orbital ATK for their rocket for NASA missions to the ISS.
I was somehow fortunate to witness OA-9, its ninth incarnation, light off from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
I wish I could give you the significance of its name, but after witnessing a 4:44am launch, I’m at a loss for words (unusual for my tag, I know).
When you’re outside in the viewing area, the tension for outsiders is palpable. Everyone is nervously laughing, hearts on edge. I felt like I was in the locker room before a big game but they didn’t let you out for warm ups.
Then before you know it you’re T-60. Everyone hears it over the loudspeaker and a slight hush falls. T-30. Everyone edges together and closer toward the launchpad, as if the 10 extra feet will give you a better view from 2 miles away.
T-10 is snapped through the quickest you could ever dream, and against rationality, a column of fire and fury starts lifting a 14-story structure into the air.
The light hits you first, then the crackling and rumbling of the engines firing. Its thrust illuminates the low clouds surrounding the spaceport and then pierces through them. Then the pressure wave thumps against your bones as the stages burn, and a once grounded star charges after its sister that passed before.
But this is is not the fire and fury of presidential warnings. The star that Anatares chases is the International Space Station, and it chases to deliver science. Little packages of human intuition saying, “I wonder what happens when” (except in space). It delivers the curiosity of humanity. It delivers letters from home. And when it completes its mission, it does one other useful thing: it takes the trash away.
That such awesome power is used to deliver packages to multi-national scientists in the sky was nothing short of emotional to me.
I shouted “god-fucking-speed” like some melodramatic actor.
...basically, go see a rocket launch.
The next one is a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch on June 1 from Cape Canaveral. And it’s another night launch.
...go see a night launch.
