ISS Just Granted Us With The Breathtaking Footage Of Soyuz Rocket Launch

Alexander Gerst, the ESA astronaut, managed to record one of the most incredible views ever captured when a rocket is launched. The video lets us see the complete process from the rocket, aka the tiny white dot, shot from the Earth surface until it crosses the Karman line and got in space.

The remarkable time-lapse video indicates the launch of a Soyuz rocket of Russia, it was launched in Kazakhstan, on November 16, 2018, from the Baikonur cosmodrome. Heading to the ISS, the captured rocket carried on its top a spacecraft named Progress MS-10, which was stuffed with about 5,652 (equals to 2,564 kilograms) of goods.

At 400 kilometers above the surface of the Earth, the International Space Station moves at a speed of about 28,000 kph. NASA chose to launch the cargo craft on November 16 because the ISS will fly overhead which means the spacecraft can catch up with the ISS on November 18.

Alexander Gerst, an astronaut on the European Space Agency, shot the video with his camera while he was in the Cupola module built in Europe. The playback you see here is 8 to 16 times as fast as the normal speed, which compresses the 15-minute video into one minute.

About the extraordinary moments of the Soyuz-FG, the booster was separated at 7 seconds; after another 8 seconds, the core stage was separated. Then at the 34^th second, the core stage set on fire in the atmosphere, turning back to Earth. It’s pretty cool to see the core stage burn and return to Earth. Finally, the Progress spacecraft separation happened, bringing the spacecraft into the orbit to pursue the ISS.

Thanks to Gerst’s video, we have the chance to admire the perspective of a rocket launch, something we don’t see every day, something to remind us how spectacular it is to see the view from the ISS.