Old video shows US rocket launch, not India's lunar spacecraft lifting off in 2023

This article is more than one year old.
Published on July 27, 2023 at 09:22
3 min read
By Uzair RIZVI, AFP India

A striking video of a rocket liftoff that had been filmed from a passenger plane has resurfaced on social media with a false claim it shows the launch of India's unmanned mission to the Moon in July 2023. The clip actually shows a rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in the United States in May 2021. The person who filmed the footage told AFP it was captured from a flight that was taking him from New York to Cancun, Mexico.

"Beautiful view of the Chandrayaan-3," reads the caption of a video shared on July 16, 2023 here on Twitter, which is being rebranded as "X".

The Chandrayaan-3 -- which means "Mooncraft" in Sanskrit -- is an unmanned spacecraft launched on July 14 which India seeks to land on the surface of the Moon.

The rocket carrying Chandrayaan-3 lifted off from Sriharikota in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh as thousands of enthusiasts clapped and cheered.

India's last attempt to land an unmanned spacecraft on the surface of the Moon ended in failure four years ago, when ground control lost contact moments before landing.

"Plane passenger captures moment rocket launches into space," reads the text overlaid onto the one-minute 23-second video.

At the three-second mark, someone can be heard saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have a launch off the left back" while other people react to the spectacle.

The post has been shared more than 1,300 times.

Screenshot of the false post captured on July 21, 2023

The same video was also shared on Twitter and Facebook, in posts that similarly claim it shows the launch of India's lunar mission.

The video, however, was published online more than two years before the launch of Chandrayaan-3 and shows a rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in the United States.

Atlas V launch

A reverse image search of keyframes on Google found the same footage in a slightly longer video -- titled "Airline passenger sees Atlas V rocket launch during flight (Raw Video)" -- that was shared on YouTube here on May 22, 2021 (archived link).

The one-minute 42-second video was shared on the verified channel "VideofromSpace", which is affiliated with the online publication Space.com.

According to the video's description, the footage was captured by photographer Andy Lin over Cape Canaveral in Florida, during his flight to Cancun.

It also links to a Space.com article that says: "United Launch Alliance (ULA) launched an Atlas V rocket into space today (May 18), marking the first launch of the year for the company" (archived link).

Andy Lin, the person credited with filming the original footage, uploaded the video on his Twitter account here on May 19, 2021 (archived link).

His video is captioned: "My plane happened to be flying by Cape Canaveral during the Atlas V launch yesterday".

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video shared in one of the false posts (left) and the video shared by Lin on May 19, 2021 (right):

Screenshot comparison between the video in one of the false posts (left) and the video shared by Lin in May 2021(right)

Lin told AFP he captured the footage while aboard Delta Air Lines flight 644, from New York to Cancun.

"I was mid-nap when I heard the announcement from the captain and immediately recorded it on my iPhone X," he said on July 20.

The footage corresponds to Google Earth imagery here of Cape Canaveral.

Below are screenshots comparing a frame in the video (left) and a view of Cape Canaveral from Google Earth (right):

Screenshot comparison between the video (right) and Google Earth imagery of Cape Canaveral (right)

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