Beautiful night launch of Delta IV carrying WGS-4

Delta IV WGS-4 Launch from the NASA Press Office

Last Thursday night on a cloudless starry night a Delta IV blasted off into the obsidian skies on its way into orbit.  The Delta 4 was in the Medium configuration with 4 strap on solid rocket boosters.

The payload it was carrying was the WGS-4 satellite.  WGS stands for Wideband Global SATCOM which is a high capacity communications satellite used by both the US and Australian Departments of Defence.

At the start of the day the weather forecast showed a 95% chance of launching which improved throughout the day to a 100% chance from the weather point of view.  The only possible thing preventing the launch would have been a technical problem.

We were hoping to view the launch from the NASA causeway, about 2.5 miles from the launch pad, but due to concerns over toxins we had to relocate to the NASA Press Center which is about 6 miles away.

The countdown continued without a hitch to a 4 minute hold.  At 7:34pm the countdown picked up again and continued all the way to an on-time launch at 7:38.  Our launch video shows the roll back of the mobile service tower in the morning, followed but the launch.  The video tracks the flight of the Delta IV rocket from launch through SRB separation to Main Engine Cut Off (MECO).