NASA, SpaceX launch historic Falcon 9 flight

Watch live as NASA and SpaceX launch the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule with two U.S. astronauts, in a history-making flight to the International Space Station.

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[BAshcraft]

Congrats CBC on covering the entire bottom of the screen with your logo.

[craigstewart]

It would be better if they would eliminate the damn banners so we could see it.

[tuusa]

These cameras in space still have a better internet connection than me

[rhondawhite]

Love how excited reporter gets. She really loves her work.

[mjtran]

Once they get in the space station, they be like:Ah, we are finally away from corona

[danalvarado]

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1... And we have lift off!" No matter how many times I watch it, I still get goosebumps 😊 Godspeed Dragon!

[jaysparc]

It's amazing that the CBC covers up the launch and relevant statistics with their useless graphics.

[FuelEnhancer]

Well done America! With love from CANADA!

[datapajahelpdesk]

Love the little mouse running around at 13:43

[paradigmshift]

This was so awesome to see given the times we are in and gives us hope for the future. I hope this will be something that my kids will forever remember since they weren’t born when the last shuttle mission was shut down. This was truly a unforgettable moment.

[ukulelegoldnuggets]

stupiest coverage, putting banner in fron of what i want to see!

[charlescary]

Those space suits look a lot more comfortable than the NASA suits.

[Omo]

This is amazing I’m happy to be alive and witness it and say I remember

[DJBlfry]

For everyone who thinks they see a "mouse" or "rat": It's neither of those things.

What you're seeing is frozen oxygen, which has been vented from the fuel tank via LOX vents. Frozen oxygen is very light and fluffy, even moreso than a snowball.

Why are they venting fuel? Well, first off, the engine produces thrust by expelling superheated water (steam), which is produced in the combustion chamber by combining LH2 (liquid hydrogen) and LOX (liquid oxygen) and igniting the mixture.

(It's important to note that the oxygen and hydrogen have to be supercooled (to -297° and -423° F, respectively) in order to compress them into liquids - this is done because liquids take up less space than gas.)

So, while this combustion does create thrust, it also creates more pressure in the fuel tanks, as the heat causes more and more of the liquid oxygen to start reverting to gas.

In order to alleviate this pressure, and avoid damaging the fuel tanks, excess LOX is vented from the fuel tanks regularly (you see them doing this on the launchpad too, since liquid oxygen and hydrogen evaporate very quickly. That's the white smoke at the beginning). Now, when a compressed gas is released to an area of lesser pressure, its temperature tends to drop drastically (this is proven by a mathematical concept called the "Ideal Gas Law").

Seeing as the gas is already at an incredibly low temperature, this drop causes the oxygen to bypass the liquid phase and become frozen (a process called "deposition") - however, because there is no hydrogen mixed with the oxygen (they're stored separately) it does not become ice. Instead, it forms a light, fluffy clump of solid, super cold oxygen, which is what you see flying off the rocket and getting trapped above the thruster.

[DD_MENEN]

Congratulations USA from South Africa ❤❤❤

[Daindrais]

When the countdown timer reached 5 seconds, I paused the video. Let them wait.

[SpectreSoundStudios]

Great job on the booster return shot! We totally wanted to see a headshot instead.

[sadiegrier]

12:05 one side shows a flat earth and the other shows a curve? How is that possible with 2 cameras on the same rocket recording at the same time but showing 2 different images.

[toefungus]

They can reach the upper atmosphere in 2 minutes but the pizza delivery driver takes 20 minutes to get to my house

[primekonan]

Such a great achievement! in such a bad time. It's awesome to hear good news :D