We’re fairly familiar with what a rocket launch looks like from the ground and that’s because they’re a little more simple to film. Capturing a launch from space however? that’s pretty much rocket science itself – but that’s exactly what this amazing video from satellite firm Planet shows.
The team behind the satellite only had around 5 hours to prepare for the launch and capturing it all via the satellite was something of a logistics nightmare. It was a matter of having the satellite in the right place at the right time as the Soyuz rocket took off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Planet uses a series of Dove satellites that point straight down, monitoring what’s below. When they heard about the launch they realised that one of them would be in range to capture the launch of the rocket which ironically was launching more Dove satellites into space.
Considering that the satellite itself was travelling at 15,658 mph it did an incredible job at capturing one still image per second to give us the amazing footage you see below.
And for curiosities sake, here’s that same launch but from the ground:
