At around 7:33 PM the SpaceX NASA Crew 8 walked out in their suits from the Neil Armstrong O&C Building for a two car Tesla ride to LC-39A. Dragon Endeavour and a new Falcon 9 rocket booster B-1083-1 were waiting for them to board for an on time liftoff at 10:53 PM March 3rd 2024 from Kennedy Space Center Florida.
Photos are from the Crew Walkout, Liftoff from atop the 41 story VAB building and the booster landing at LZ-1. Around midnight NASA was able to take media back out to the launch site to recover remote cameras covered in heavy dew but two out of three cameras did have beautiful images to share with you.
On board Dragon Endeavour are the 50th SpaceX astronauts flown into space. Endeavour's fifth trip to space with an intinal concern about a cracked door gasket. At minus ten minutes to launch the go ahead to proceed with the countdown from engineers who felt it would still be fine on re-entry.
It was an amazing launch and it was the culimination of a six year journey from this photographers quest to cover launches as a media representative. This is now my 200th media launch!
Photos by Scott Schilke for Sipa USA & spacenewsfl.com