It’s one of those situations where, as the ubiquitous “they” say, you had to be there.
Fortunately for FLORIDA TODAY readers, photojournalist Craig Bailey was there, armed with decades of launch-shooting experience.
He came away with a photo that practically rises off the page along with the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that soared 14 minutes before sunrise on Monday, Aug. 12. Carrying 23 Starlink satellites, it lifted off from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center.
“There wasn’t much to it from my end. I just had to be there,” Bailey said. “The photo was a result of changes in the weather (thanks, Ernesto) combined with a couple of launch scrubs.”
Fortunately, at 0637 hours, everything worked out, Bailey said.
“Without the clouds on the horizon and the pre-dawn light show, this photo just isn’t the same,” he said.
“As I’ve said before, sometimes it’s just better to be lucky.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Launching into a new day: Photo of the Week, Aug. 11-17, 2024
