Shuttle Endeavour Roll Out

Shuttle Endeavour rolled out last night from the Vehicle Assembly Building and headed over to Launch Pad 39A. This is mission STS-134 and is scheduled to blast off on April 19, 2011. I had the really cool chance to photograph this from inside the VAB and was so glad that I drove all the way to Kennedy Space Center and did it. I love the way the shuttle lights up with the Xenon lights hitting it and couldn't get over how big the building and the Endeavour actually are.

The space program at KSC seems to be winding down, (which sucks), and this is the last ever launch of Endeavour, so I will put out as many remote cameras as I can and pray for a successful mission.

Thanks to all who helped me at the VAB and to all of the folks at NASA.

Shuttle Discovery Final Flight

I had the coolest time shooting the final liftoff of the Space Shuttle Discovery this past week. With all the hype and worry surrounding the NASA shuttle program, this was indeed one cool shoot that I am very appreciative of being able to cover. Not everyone gets the chance to stand this close to a rocket and I will never forget the feeling of it taking off.

I set a Canon 7d remote camera set up in the swamps facing a waterway with a sound trigger to activate the camera upon liftoff. The trigger turns the camera on from its sleep mode about 10 minutes before the scheduled liftoff time. The "awake" camera automatically starts snapping images when the sound trigger hears a loud noise. The shuttle is loud when the boosters fire up and this starts the image capture.

I have a lot of people to thank in helping me learn the ropes on this type of shooting but I want to put a big shout out to Don Montague and Red Huber. They know what they are doing and are not afraid or too stuck up to share their knowledge!

By the way, we went to retrieve our camera's at about 10p.m. in the pitch black and we encountered monster mosquitos and a rather large alligator in the water keeping watch on my tripod. It's always an adventure here in Florida.

More pics: http://alexmenendez.photoshelter.com/