- 5 - The big show :)

It was incredible, that’s all I can say. I woke up at 4:30 in the morning and went to Pulicat lake area where the launch can be seen clearly. It was nearly 10km from the town and I shared an auto with 8 others… Yes, 10 adults in an auto!!

Among others in the auto there were three guys from Hyderabad. From the point where we got down, we could see the launch site brightly illuminated. By six, we were able to see the second launch site and the nearby Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) as well. The weather was great and the sky wasn’t too cloudy, so we all knew we can expect a great show.

We could have gone another 4km towards the launch site, i.e. till the front gate of SHAR. There we could have seen the rocket a lot closer but won’t be able to see the trajectory and can see very little of the lift off itself, if the rocket enters the cloud (as happened today).

Folks at home alerted me when the final countdown was initiated. It was so beautiful, the huge ball of flame rushed towards the sky while the assembled crowd went berserk. A few seconds later, the rocket vanished into the cloud, that’s when the people assembled close to the launch area lost sight of it. Once the rocket came out of the cloud it took a curved path away from us, so we couldn’t see the full arc. But people watching half a kilometer away from us were able to see it perfectly.

It was a great learning experience. We heard the rocket approx 30 sec after it lifted off the ground. Sound travels at 330 m/s; if you do the math, the rocket should be approx 10km from the point where we are standing, and the actual distance would come around that much (correct me if I am wrong).

By the way, I have uploaded the video in YouTube.