NASA | HD LRO and LCROSS Atlas 5 Launch

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NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched at 5:32 p.m. EDT aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The satellite will relay more information about the lunar environment than any other previous mission to the moon.

[than]

I love those flames at 2:15 on, so cool. Nothing like a good rocket launch.

[michchap]

My partner and I watched the Atlas V launch on NASATV on 18 June 2009. It was cool to participate, in a very small way, in America's return to the Moon.

[Anonymoose]

Beautiful launch! It doesn't get any better.

[perfectionbox]

Probably the cleanest launch I've ever seen. Nicely done.

Fly me... to the moon... :)

[than]

Once the vid is completely loaded drag the little cursor between 1:40 to the end of the vid, it looks real cool. Really fluid progressive explosion out of the back.

[Anjum]

That's a good point but I think there's a different reason:
The brown stuff appears bigger because there's a small layer of ice all over it, and it melts and evaporates as it goes higher, making it appear to shrink. Notice how the colour changes (although this could be due to the shadows) and also notice how you can see more detail in the ridges when the ice has gone

[ChildOL]

@balderdash707...

You made a point for me, thanks for making their missions even more improbable especially with 0 failures except for the staged failure of the Apollo 13 mission to get interest back. Also they do not need to be directed via radio they could have been fully briefed on what to look for before leaving earth etc.

[JustShoveJayOhBe]

@ 2:50 that's a way from Florida! It's mind boggling that I was only just pulling back onto the road in Port Canaveral to head back to the hotel at the time that this thing was already in space!

[CounterNerd]

Yay, you answered my request!! Thank NASA!!

[balderdash]

They can be briefed to the extent of "look for rocks that look like X", but to really know what you're doing when choosing rocks you have to spend years at a university. I wouldn't be surprised if the astronauts just took a random sampling of rocks from the moon (which would still be very useful in learning about the average makeup of the surface, but not if you're looking for something in particular).

[broodzakje]

Wow that rocket must be really heavy, look at the slow liftoff

[richardschumacher]

Why th' heck did NASA post it with the wrong aspect ratio?

[Anjum]

That would be ice! The liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks are very cold, which causes water vapour to condense and freeze on the tanks.

[lion]

For some reason I always though when it went threw the atmosphere it was look different.

[lkdsjflskdfj]

In the future, humans will achieve correct usage of "there" and "their".

[JenjuroX]

Some people find it interesting and educating to watch these launches...and I think NASA realizes this.

You're not a bright one eh buddy? Also, If they didn't show these on here...you'd some how bring up the question of "why aren't they showing these videos publicly?!".

[WhoIsMarkLeeming]

Not true where talking about the Earth. Infact NASA have actually used Hubble to take pictures of Earth, they just dont use it all the time because they have other specialised sattalites for that job.

[SaveWesternCivilisation]

Bloody brilliant...not too many machines will hit 4400 miles per hour two minutes after takeoff...and flying straight up, no less! This thing is bloody cool.
-I'm sure some brainy person can tell us why the brown skin shrunk inwards as the altitude increased- look at the ribs getting more and more prominent...Also the flame changes colour after about 2.10- finally becoming clear-(Hydrogen burns with an invisible flame)...
Here's to space flight ;-)

[chobson]

That's why i said UFO's because i don't know what it is, it doesn't of to be an alien spaceship.

[ChildOL]

@balderdash707...

Do you know how dumb it sounds when NASA and others say that when we go _back_ to the moon we can test the soil and learn about it and see if it has water etc etc. when we supposedly went to the moon many times 30 years ago and got lots of soil samples and moon rocks?