(UPDATED 7/SEPT FOR SILENTBARKER VIEWING INFO)
(UPDATED 30/SEPT FOR PSYCHE, KUIPER)
(UPDATED 11/OCT FOR PSYCHE DELAY 2)
With Elon Musk gradually making Twitter more inconvenient, and the preposterous spread of alternatives that’ve sprung up to try and eat its lunch, I’ve been reminded that Actual, Proper, Focused Websites are more important than ever, and I’ve got one here that I keep putting by the wayside when I really shouldn’t.
With that said, until I can get my feet under me, I’m at a disadvantage in doing so, but I’m still hoping to do my best to continue at least with updates around significant missions. I’ll go into future plans downstream, but for now let’s do a quick recap of what’s to come in spaceflight:
Upcoming Launches/Where+How to Watch Them
We’re poised to have several big-ticket launches lift off this fall, with crewed NASA missions like Crew-7, the long-awaited Psyche mission on NASA’s first Falcon Heavy, the ever-delayed demo flight of Vulcan, and a few unique treats like the DoD’s SILENTBARKER mission on Atlas V and potentially the first launch of Amazon’s Project Kuiper.
Psyche
The launch window for Psyche runs from October 5th to October 25th, and the launch is currently scheduled for Friday October 13th, with a window opening at 10:19 AM meaning if it doesn’t launch within that timeframe, it’ll be stuck on Earth until the next launch window opens. It can’t slip later than the 25th. As a Falcon Heavy mission, it will feature TWO booster landings, a double-RTLS. If seeing the launch itself up close is more important to you, pick somewhere closer to Titusville. If you’d prefer a close view of the booster landings, you’ll want to be closer to Cape Canaveral/Cocoa Beach, but barring that general advice, here’s a runthrough of your options.
Paid Viewing
The KSC Visitors’ Complex is offering add-on viewing packages ($70/person, in addition to daily admission (possibly sold out, unclear) from the Banana River viewing site at the Saturn V center, and if seeing a launch is your bucket-list item, at any cost, being ~4 miles away from the pad may well be worth it to you. From here, the booster landing site is beside/behind the NASA VAB, depending on where you sit, for reference.
Viewing from the main center, with commentary and some jumbotrons scattered through the park, is included with admission. You won’t have a clear view of the launchpads or the landing pads, but that may be a tradeoff you’re willing to make.
Star*Fleet tours have been forced to cancel their launch viewing cruise due to the 1-day slip to Friday, as the boat they were going to charter had other obligations that day.
Jetty Park in Port Canaveral ($15/Car) will no doubt be open as normal, though you have to purchase your parking pass online in advance, and getting into the park itself is first-come first-serve, with no guaranteed reentry. If you’re in a camper, you could book a campsite the night before, as well. The Cocoa Beach Pier may be offering paid viewing and if so, that’s definitely an option as well.
Playalinda Beach ($20/Car) should be open given how late in the morning Psyche will be flying, but there’s every chance SpaceX and/or NASA will order it closed, so don’t count on it, check their website. Like I just did, and was reminded that there is a very strong chance the park won’t be open at all. If the federal government shuts down, the Canaveral National Seashore (and Playalinda Beach within it) will be be closed, as they are a national park funded (or not funded, in the case of a shutdown) by the federal government. One can only hope they resolve this in time, I was kinda hoping to catch the Kuiper from there, ugh.
Free Viewing
If you’d prefer to be closer to the landing, you’ll want to be around Cape Canaveral/Cocoa Beach. The parks in Port Canaveral (Freddie Patrick and Rodney S Ketcham) are nice, and come with facilities like restrooms. The same goes for beachfront viewing from Alan Shepard Park and Lori Wilson Park in Cocoa Beach. Parks aside, all public beach accesses are generally open dawn-to-dusk, which works out just fine, but those have extremely limited parking and no amenities.
If being close to the landing isn’t a big deal for you, you will be treated just fine by any public park in the Titusville area. Honestly, just pick whichever one has free parking, they all have almost the same view.
All of these are roughly equivalent in distance, though you’ll be closest to the pads from the Downtown area, near to the Max Brewer Bridge. The bridge itself is a nice view, if you can find nearby parking (say, at Sand Point) and don’t mind the walk up to its highest points, though space is limited up top.
Kuiper and Vulcan Demo-1
Both of these will be flying from ULA’s Launch Complex 41, with the first launch of Amazon’s Kuiper scheduled for 2:00 PM on Friday, October 6th, and the demo of the Vulcan rocket w/the Peregrine lunar lander tentatively later in the month, possibly November.
Kuiper will take place in daylight hours, which means Playalinda Beach ($20/car) will be open IF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOES NOT SHUT DOWN. It’s among the best spots to catch a launch from LC-41, if it falls between dawn and dusk (6am-8pm during summer hours, 6am-6pm in the winter), and at 20 dollars per car, it’s generally the most affordable paid option.
With the Kuiper launch taking place in the middle of the day, KSC is not offering any premium viewing packages, not even the Gantry mentioned below. That doesn’t mean you aren’t getting close, though, it just means you don’t have to pay an upcharge to watch from the Apollo/Saturn V Center/Banana Creek viewing area. That’s included with admission, so if you were already planning a visit to the Visitors Complex, it may be a solid option.
The holy grail for an LC-41 launch is when the Kennedy Space Center offers viewing from the LC-39 Gantry, at just over two miles away, though that is extremely limited and subject to cancellations based on weather. If the wind blows in just the wrong way, it falls within the hazard area for the pad. Keep an eye on their website and their twitter for updates, and also consider signing up for their email list.
Barring that, anywhere along the river in Titusville will treat you right, with a view across the Intracoastal Waterway right to the pad. There’s a small region north of Titus Landing where the VAB blocks your view of LC-41, but there’s no public viewing in that area anyhow.
Other, Assorted Launches
if it’s not on this list, it’s probably a Starlink or other commercial payload that SpaceX will launch from Launch Complex 40 at varying hours of the day, generally featuring droneship landings instead of RTLS. If you’re going to the KSC Visitors Center anyway during your trip, and they’re offering Banana River viewing with admission/in addition to admission, it’s generally worth it since you’re already there.
Otherwise, the view from Playalinda is not nearly as good for LC-40 as it is for LC-39A and LC-41 (it’s almost hidden behind 39A). The free options, the assorted public parks in Titusville, will have clear views across the water, and are generally open day or night for launches. Getting by the river will get you close enough to have a good time.
Past Launches
in all honesty i’ve just kinda mangled this article by reusing a whole lot of sections, these are just here for completion’s sake
Crew-7
As of initial writing, SpaceX Crew-7 is presently scheduled for August 25th, at 3:49 AM, and it’ll be NASA’s first crewed mission with an RTLS of the Falcon 9 first stage! That’s going to make this and future astronaut launches more interesting, for sure.
NROL-107/SILENTBARKER
After being delayed by Hurricane Idalia, SILENTBARKER (NROL-107) is planned to lift off on Saturday, September 9th, with a window opening at 8:51 AM.
UPDATE 7/SEPT: I’m not sure if I missed the email from Delaware North, or if the Atlas being rolled back due to Hurricane Idalia just kinda threw a wrench in things, but KSC has made viewing available for NROL-107/SILENTBARKER. Better yet, they’re offering the Gantry. The park will open early to accomodate this, with boarding for Gantry-bound buses set for 7:15 AM, and the main visitors center opening to general admission at the same time. If you’re in town already, and planned on visiting KSC anyway, this $50 addon is the best viewing for an Atlas launch, bar none.
Site and Personal Updates
Last time I posted a site update, I had just been hit by a car, and was stuck recovering from a broken clavicle. The fundraiser went well over my initial target, and I even got a big tax return from only working 3 months last year before the gas station fired me while I was at my mom’s funeral, a whole $500 of paycheck deductions returned to me plus an additional tax credit.
The good news? My arm has healed, and my shoulder is only occasionally a little achy. I’m not stuck in the house, unable to run errands without a profound effort and pulling a wagon behind me to walk a mile to the store. I can bike around, I can go out and do launch photography/outreach, and so on.
But after six months, that money has dried up; Not only were the bills higher than I had estimated (thanks, insurance, for literally nothing), but I was in billing hell for so long with the billing company for Brevard County Fire and Rescue that I bled out what little surplus money I had. Doesn’t help that I’m still unemployed, and it seems like more and more places are just outright closing down in the area, makin’ options even fewer.
As I’d alluded to in the Crew-6/Spring Update post, I’d been hoping to use anything leftover from the medical fundraising on improving this site, and dissecting Wayward’s tangle of home-rolled themes and confusing organization to make it a better experience overall, both for me writing articles and readers finding them. To get it modernized, cleaned up, and laid out better, and get into a position where I could reach out to potential advertisers, local restaurants/attractions/etc, stuff that’d complement your trip to view a launch.
But we’re in a bit of a tough spot, right now. I’d like to make money from the site through advertising (it’d be nice to have a bit of help paying my bills while the job hunt’s going nowhere), but I can’t do so unless the site gets renovated. And I can’t do that without having money to hire a developer. I have the individual developer picked out already, who already has a great portfolio working on sites for niche tourist interests. He ran a fan-focused site for a major theme park for decades, up until recently. I have everything lined up that I’d need to do the remodel, except the money to pay the people.
So, as these quarterly posts so often do, this one will end with a call to action/call for assistance. If you like what LaunchRats is able to do already, and want to help me not only continue to do what we’re doing, but do a better job, please consider financially supporting us in one of several ways:
- – Subscribe to my personal Patreon
- – Purchase a rocket launch photo print from my online shop
- – Send a direct donation via Paypal
- – Once I receive an updated estimate from the guy, I’ll create a fundraiser. I might sticky that to the page when I do.
Safe travels and happy launches as always,
Lupi