I captured the following video of a nighttime Atlas V rocket launch I witnessed, along side my father, while in Central Florida on Thanksgiving vacation with my family.
Note that I’ve modified the audio a bit to try an enhance the interesting bits while muting distracting background noises. That is, I’ve boosted up the countdown from a nearby radio scanner while muting the sound of cars passing by on the highway. Given the distance between the pad and the viewing location, the sound of the rocket boosters are not noticeable until about 1:35 mark.
The launch occurred at 1:55 am EST on November 23rd, 2009 from pad SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral. The video was shot just north of Florida Highway 528, about 13 miles south of the launch complex.
Red Marker denotes Launchpad 41, Green Marker denotes Viewing Location
The Atlas V rocket launch was preformed by United Launch Alliance and contained an international telecommunications satellite, Intelsat 14, which is slated to replace the Intelsat 1R satellite currently in operation.
Intelsat 14 was successfully launched into a transfer orbit that will eventually place it into a circular geostationary orbit over the equator at 45 degrees west longitude.
In addition to bridging commercial intercontinental telecommunications, Intelsat 14 contains experimental equipment on behalf of the Department of Defense designed by Cisco known as Internet Routing in Space (IRIS). The “space router” is designed to test routing IP traffic in orbit, eliminating the need to send data to and from additional ground stations for network routing and in turn promises to allow U.S. military, allied forces and possible future commercial operators to quickly communicate using the Internet protocol for voice, video and data relay to remote locations all over the world.