A video circulating on social media shows the remarkable moment when passengers on a Delta Airlines flight traveling from San José, Costa Rica, to Atlanta, Georgia, witnessed the historic launch of NASA's Artemis II mission from the air, which took place this Wednesday.
In the images, the excited voice of a crew member on the plane can be heard, unable to hide their amazement.
"Fifteen years of flying, praying to see something like this. You don’t see this every day. They are going around the Moon. I traveled to Florida I don’t know how many times, half a dozen times, to watch the space shuttle launch in my day. And it was always canceled. And here, front-row seats."
The SLS rocket launched on April 1 at 6:35 PM local time from launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and its luminous trail was clearly visible from the cruising altitude of a commercial airplane that was flying over the region at that very moment.
The route from Costa Rica to Atlanta crosses areas with a direct line of sight to Cape Canaveral, making the passengers on that flight front-row spectators of one of the most anticipated space launches in recent history.
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