SpaceX: Stunning footage shows moment Falcon 9 rocket blasts twin satellites into space on NASA mission

Tom Powell23 May 2018

This was the breath-taking moment twin satellites were launched into space aboard a rocket on a mission to monitor the Earth's water.

The footage, released by NASA, shows the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roaring off from its pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Tuesday.

The rocket can be seen shooting through the clear blue sky, leaving an enormous cloud of white smoke in its wake.

SpaceX, the space exploration firm founded by Elon Musk, has now launched ten rockets successfully into orbit this year, and 54 since 2012.

The rocket blasted off from California's Vandenberg Air Force base

The rocket's first stage was previously used for a launch from Florida in January, but SpaceX did not attempt to recover it this time.

The so-called Grace satellites are part of a joint US-German mission to monitor the water on Earth. They will replace two successful spacecraft that stopped working last year.

Once prepared and tested, the satellites are set to gather data for a minimum of five years.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket blasts off into space

1/16

The mission will detect the movement of Earth's water masses and changes in mass within the planet by measuring variations in gravity through tiny fluctuations in the distance between the two satellites as they orbit 137 miles apart at an altitude of about 304 miles.

The constant mapping of the gravity field reveals changes in Earth's ice sheets, aquifers, lakes and sea level.

The satellites are part of a joint US-German mission
AFP/Getty Images

"Grace was really a revolutionary mission for us understanding the water cycle and how the climate behaves and the trends which are taking place over the last 10 or 15 years," Frank Webb, GRACE-FO project scientist, told a pre-launch press conference.

NASA contributed $430 million (£321m) to the new mission and the German contribution was 77 million euros (£67m), officials said.

The Falcon 9 also shot higher into space to release five Iridium satellites into orbit. The satellites, owned by Iridium Communications, bring the constellation of communication devices to 55.