This past Monday morning, the OA-9 mission launched from Wallops Island to deliver supplies to the ISS. I was lucky to be able to watch the launch from the launch facility’s viewing area alongside the JPL RainCube team whose spacecraft was onboard the rocket.

RainCube is the first radar application in a CubeSat and will reach the ISS on Thursday night Pacific time. From there, it will be released into orbit later this year. Other CubeSats on the launch include CubeRRT and TEMPEST-D. CubeRRT comes with its own tasty Extra Pale Ale brewed in Ohio. (Alas, only to be enjoyed by us on the ground, not by the crew of the ISS.)

The launch was originally slated for Sunday morning but was scrubbed until Monday for additional checks and better weather conditions. Initially, weather on Monday looked mediocre still but went to green shortly before the launch window opened. Some pictures I took of the launch are below. Luckily, these are a lot less dramatic than the ones from the Orb-3 launch I attended in 2014. Congrats to everyone involved!