Video shows US rocket blasting off, not launch of India's lunar mission in July 2023
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on July 28, 2023 at 08:09
- 4 min read
- By AFP Sri Lanka
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The one-minute 15-second video was shared on Facebook here on July 18, 2023.
Its English-language caption claims it was filmed aboard a flight that coincidentally "was passing over SrihariKota at the time of launch of Chandrayan-3".
The rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-3 -- an unmanned spacecraft that India is seeking to land on the surface of the Moon -- lifted off on July 14 from Sriharikota in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
People can be heard reacting to the rocket launch throughout the video and at its 15-second mark someone is heard announcing: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have liftoff."
The same clip was repeatedly shared with similar claims on WhatsApp in Sri Lanka, and in Facebook posts by users based in India here and here.
But the video in fact shows a SpaceX rocket lifting off from Florida in the United States, not the rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-3 being launched in Sriharikota.
Falcon 9 launch
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video led to an Instagram post that shared the same clip on December 15, 2022 (archived link).
Below are screenshot comparisons of the video used in the false post (left) and the clip shared on Instagram (right):
"My plane flew by Cape Canaveral and caught the SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch!!" reads text overlaid on the video, referring to the stretch of coastline in Florida in the United States where many space missions are launched (archived link).
Geographic features visible at the three-second mark of the video falsely shared on Facebook correspond to features seen in Google Earth imagery of launchpads at Cape Canaveral, near NASA's Kennedy Space Center (archived link).
Below is a comparison of what appear to be paths and launchpad infrastructure, circled by AFP, visible in both the video falsely shared on social media (left) and on Google Earth (right):
The private aerospace company SpaceX documents its launches on its website, but there were no daytime Falcon 9 rocket launches prior to December 15, 2022, when the Instagram video was posted.
The closest daytime launch of a Falcon 9 rocket was on November 26, 2022, which was written about here (archived link).
The company said the rocket was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as part of a mission to resupply the International Space Station.
A YouTube video embedded on the website also briefly shows the launch site from the rocket's perspective after liftoff, which matches the features seen in the falsely shared video and on Google Earth (archived link).
A similar video was posted earlier by photojournalist Nick Leimbach on Twitter, which is being rebranded as "X" (archived link).
The caption of the video, which was posted on November 26, 2022 -- the same day as the SpaceX launch -- reads: "One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Aboard @United Airlines 220 flying over Cape Canaveral as a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off."
The video appears to capture the same launch from a slightly different angle. It also includes the announcement heard in the falsely shared video: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have liftoff."
Leimbach also told AFP on July 22, 2023 that he took the video during a flight above Cape Canaveral in 2022.
AFP previously debunked another false claim about purported footage of the Indian rocket launch here.
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