WIRE Launch Status - March 4, 1999

by Rich Neuschaefer


Wow!!!!

Neat-O, way cool launch!

About 7pm sitting in on the tail gate of my truck in the driveway in west San Jose (very close to Cupertino) I saw the rocket low, moving from the south, southwest to the east. It looked was moderately bright reddish light. Not as bright as the white landing lights of a "near by" air plane. I followed it with my Nikon 12x50 binoculars. It changed stages and left a long gray smoke trail and a brighter whitish light. It light grew brighter with a large bright glow around the point of light (flame).

Through the binoculars I could see two or three small, white flickering points (something falling away from the rocket?). The bright glow got quite bright, easy to see without the binoculars. The rocket (bright point) went away but a blue green, round "cloud" remained glowing in the sky for several minutes.

One more WoW!