Space Shuttle launch STS-119

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On march 15th, 2009 I was lucky enough to witness a shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It was a memory I will never forget, the noise and the thought that man is flying into outer space was very moving.
The mission was STS-119, a regular maintenance mission to the ISS (International Space Station) and add some new parts to the ISS.

The mission was a great success! I have posted the sequence of pictures I took of the launch! I hope they are not too many .

I had to witness the launch from approximately 10 mile away, because the island of Cape Canaveral is closed to the public during launch day, only a select few lucky people and press get to witness the launch from the island itself.

Here a picture of the people camped out to witness the Shuttle STS-119 launch, I was among them eagerly anticipating the blast off!

This is a picture of the Shuttle assembly building, this is where the shuttle and its rocket boosters get assembled for the launch

This is the closest picture I could get of the launch complex 39A with my big zoom lens!

This was engine ignition! you could see the light from the fire, but could not hear anything yet! the sound took a while longer to reach us!

This is where the people really started cheering!!! beautiful launch!

And now the sound started to reach us and you could feel in your chest the massive thrust of the incredible rocket boosters at full throttle!

all the people around me standing in awe and happiness

watching a beatiful launch

now it was accelerating and climbing faster

now I will leave you to enjoy the amazing pictures of the shuttle climbing...

climbing...

climbing...

climbing...

probably at this time it was throttle down from maximum pressure

prepare for roll onto its back

rolling...

prepare for jettison of SRB(Solid Rocket Boosters) the 2 rockets on shuttle's side.

separation of SRB(Solid Rocket Booster)

here you can now see 3 separate objects flying, shuttle and 2 SRBs

rocket boosters falling back to earth

next comes the main engine shutoff

and separation of the external tank

SRB (Solid rocket boosters) falling back to earth, there is a NASA vessel waiting for retrieval in the Atlantic.

this was a final picture of the leftover smoke with the last few sunshine rays shining on it.

Even though the Space Shuttle program has suffered two catastrophic accidents, it still remains one of the marvels of our 20th century! let us see what the future has in store for us now.

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