Fact Check: Video of SpaceX rocket shared as visuals of Chandrayaan-3 launch

Hyderabad: On July 14, India successfully launched Chandrayaan-3 into Earth’s orbit. The lander is due to reach the moon on August 23-24.

Amidst the video of the launch going viral on social media, a video of a rocket launch allegedly shot from an aeroplane is being shared with the claim that it shows the launch of Chandrayaan-3.

A Facebook user shared the video with the caption, “An Indigo flight was flying from Chennai to Dhaka. Coincidentally, it was passing over Sriharikota at the time of the launch of Chandrayan-3. The pilot announced that the passengers can be the witness of the historic event, the launch of Chandrayan-3. A passenger in a window seat recorded a video on his mobile and it is the first-ever amateur video of a spacecraft from space. (sic)”

He added, “The video has been twitted by Dr PV Venkitakrishnan, Director (retired), ISRO Materials and Rocket Manufacturing. (Actually speaking, the airspace around Sriharikota should have been a no-fly zone at the time of launch and the aeroplane was well outside the no-fly zone) A wonderful caption has been suggested by a Twitter user *When Aviation Meets Astronomy*. (sic)”

Several Twitter and Facebook users shared the video claiming the same.

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the video is from November 2022 and is not related to the launch of Chandrayaan-3. Read on to see the real video of the Chandrayaan-3 launch captured from space.

On performing a reverse image search of the video’s keyframe, we came across an NDTV report from February 16, 2023, titled “Passenger Shot SpaceX Rocket Launch From A Plane Window.” The report carried a still from the video.

The report also featured the viral video tweeted by a user on January 5, 2023. The user mentioned in the caption that the video shows the launch of SpaceX Falcon 9.

A Daily Star report from February 15, 2023, said that the passengers on a United Airlines flight passing over Cape Canaveral, Florida, witnessed the launch of SpaceX Falcon 9 leaving Earth. A user recorded the video, and it went viral on social media.

A News Corp Australia report from February 16, 2023, said SpaceX’s newest Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft, the Dragon C211, was launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket on November 26, 2022.

It also mentioned that the video was shot by American photojournalist Nick Leimbach, who shared the video on Twitter on November 26, 2022. He described it as “One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.”

According to the SpaceX website, “Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond. Falcon 9 is the world’s first orbital-class reusable rocket. Reusability allows SpaceX to re-fly the most expensive parts of the rocket, which in turn drives down the cost of accessing space.”

The real launch video

Fake news aside, there is an authentic video of the Chandrayaan-3 launch captured from a flight. IndiGo, on July 16, tweeted a video of the launch of Chandrayaan-3, recorded by Mr Ponraj while he was travelling to Dhaka from Chennai on an IndiGo flight. This video is not the same as the viral video.

Hence, we conclude that the viral video shows the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9, not Chandrayaan-3.