It's hard not to talk about the NGRST launch

It's easy to get used to how smoothly and flawlessly these missions are tending to go these days. I had my alarm set to 7:00 AM specifically so that I wouldn't sleep so long I'd miss the coverage, and woke up closer to 6:30. Once I fed the boss, it was plain I wasn't going back to bed and it gave me plenty  of time to grab a coffee and watch the last half hour of the countdown. 

Like virtually all SpaceX launches, every event called out in the schedule was exactly on time. One of the guys would say something, like "booster 1 will get its fueling start call soon" and most of the time the call out happened either during the last few seconds of what he was saying or a few seconds right after. We started watching right after 0700 and that accuracy held for the entire time we were watching. The view outside was good, minimal thin clouds and good visibility the whole time. Our usual approach is to watch until just after the boosters are dropped and begin their approach to their landing destination. By the time we walk into the house and sit down, it's less than a minute from the booster landing.

The first rumble, the one that seems to come from the launch and gets here pretty much at the same time as Booster Engine Cut Off (BECO) happens, wasn't very impressive, but it got louder and shook things more noticeably a bit later. I didn't make note of the time, but it might have been a minute or two after BECO and the boosters being dropped to start their return trip to the KSC to land for reuse.  

A "standard" liftoff view photo found on Space.com. 

SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches with NASA’S Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope onboard from Launch Complex 39A, Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Image credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky)

And an artsy view that I also got from Space.com. 

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA's Roman Space Telescope crosses the sun during launch from Pad 39A of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida on Aug. 30, 2026. (Image credit: Space.com / Josh Dinner)

I started this off saying that it's easy to get used to how smoothly and flawlessly these missions are tending to go these days. That's leaving out that part of that "smoothly and flawlessly" is things like landing the boosters back on the Cape, and that has been at industrial scale for only a few years. It's so easy to take success like that for granted.