It was a clear night in Orlando giving a great view of the launch of Merah Putih. Because the launch occurred on-time, at 1:18am the trajectory did not take the rocket into sunlight during staging giving a clear single engine burn visible from Orlando but no ‘jellyfish’ that appears when the plume from the 2nd stage engine is illuminated by sunlight.
According to the webcast fairing deployment was clean however because of the lack of sunlight to reflect off the fairings I was not able to see them separate.
Following staging the 1st stage performed a 3 engine burn and landed on the drone ship. I wasn’t able to see the entry burn from Orlando, this is one of those times it pays to have your phone showing the launch webcast! Entry burns are frequently visible from Orlando, especially when they are coming in to land at LZ-1 at the cape.
Following a clean 2nd burn of the 2nd stage for circularization, the satellite was deployed.
Here are some links for this mission:
NasaSpaceflight.com Merah Putih Updates