---
title: "Watch Lightning Strike a Rocket as It Launches"
description: "About 10 second after launch, a massive bolt of lightning struck a Russian Soyuz 2-1b rocket — a remarkable sight captured on video by numerous spectators."
date: "2019-05-28"
modified: "2019-05-28"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/see-lightning-struck-rocket"
categories:
  - "Off-World"
  - "Space"
tags:
  - "lightning"
  - "rocket"
  - "Roscosmos"
  - "soyuz"
  - "the digest"
---

# Watch Lightning Strike a Rocket as It Launches

![About 10 second after launch, a massive bolt of lightning struck a Russian Soyuz 2-1b rocket — a remarkable sight captured on video by numerous spectators.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/see-lightning-struck-rocket.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Ride the Lightning

In Russia, a little lightning isn't enough to stop a rocket from completing its mission.

On Monday, Russian space agency Roscosmos launched a Soyuz 2-1b rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a spaceport about 800 kilometers (497 miles) north of Moscow. About 10 seconds later, a massive bolt of lightning struck the spacecraft — a remarkable sight [captured on video](<https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-russia-s-soyuz-rocket-get-hit-by-lightning-mid-launch>) by numerous spectators.

https://youtu.be/-jQVsI7erv8

## Mission: Still Possible

The lightning strike might look dramatic, but it had [no impact](<https://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12233618@egNews>) on the mission — the rocket spent the next 3.5 hours making its way into low-Earth orbit, where it delivered a Glonass-M navigation satellite into orbit.

"Lightning is not an obstacle to you," [tweeted](<https://twitter.com/Rogozin/status/1132970813790015489>) Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin alongside a video of the lightning strike.

## Rocket Science

This isn't the first time lightning has struck an ascending rocket — famously, lightning struck one of NASA's Saturn V rockets during the 1969 launch of the crewed Apollo 12 mission not once, [but twice](<https://youtu.be/BCVVbnhfAFg>).

Thankfully, the people designing these rockets understand that sending a massive hunk of metal into the sky might attract lightning, and so they build the craft accordingly.

"The weather is not an obstacle and we \[the Space Force of Russia’s Aerospace Forces\] are all-weather troops," Plesetsk Cosmodrome chief Nikolai Nestechuk [told Russian news agency *TASS*](<http://tass.com/science/1060233>). "This is yet another proof that lightning cannot damage our aerospace weapons."

**READ MORE:** [Wild Footage Shows Lightning Strike Russia's Soyuz Rocket Mid-Launch](<https://www.sciencealert.com/watch-russia-s-soyuz-rocket-get-hit-by-lightning-mid-launch>) \[*Science Alert*\]

**More on Roscosmos:** *[Expert: SpaceX Just Made Russia’s Space Program “Null and Void”](<https://futurism.com/spacex-roscosmos-space-program-null-void>)*

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)