COLUMBIA, S.C. — Boeing's Starliner launched from Cape Canaveral, FL at 6:36 am on Friday morning, and just 2 minutes later, South Carolina got an incredible view.
Friday's Starliner mission was a test demonstration of the vessel's capability to bring astronauts to the International Space Station from the United States. No one has launched into space from the United States since the Space Shuttle program ended in July 2011. Unfortunately, today's mission was not successfully able to make it to the International Space Station, but people across the southeast US were still treated to an incredible view.
News 19 viewers shared there images of Atlas showing off a white stream of clouds that abruptly stopped as the vessel separated from its boosters. Atlas was flying at 90-thousand feet above the ground which was high enough for the exhaust plume to be fully lit in sunlight despite the dark morning sky.
Although the starliner looks slow in these videos, it was moving at 5 times the speed of sound. Just 2 minutes prior to these videos in South Carolina, the rocket was sitting on the launching pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida, which is about 400 miles away.