In the early morning hours of Wednesday September 2nd people were awakened by a very unusual sight. A bright flume of smoke was lit up in the sky with what appeared to be a beam of light coming down from it. Many people thought it was a meteor, a possible explosion, or even a UFO. The confusion was so great that the National Weather Service had to issue a statement to let people know that there was not any kind of meteor of anything.
In reality the sight that everyone was witnessing was the launch of the Atlas V rocket that was scheduled to launch at 6:18am that morning. The amazing sight they were witnessing was the rocket launching creating a flume of atmospheric pressure. This flume is created at every launch of every rocket, but in this particular launch at the time of day the flume was illuminated as the sun was just rising, creating an amazing and never before seen sight. Many people who knew about the launch called into news stations and asked across social media whether something went wrong with the launch and asked if there was any kind of explosion. People had reason to suspect that something might have gone wrong after the SpaceX explosion on June 28th.
The Atlas V was launching one of 4 satellites for the Navy, the MUOS-4. Together with ground relay systems and military handheld devices it will provide smart phone coverage to sailors at sea, troops in remote locations, and even coverage for the Coast Guard in the Arctic.