From a pilots perspective, what are the differences between a night launch and a day launch?
Any launch is a great launch when you make it to orbit with a crew that you enjoy spending time with. And the preparation for a night launch versus a day launch was that we had to practice landings more at night because of the possibility of a Return-to-Launch-Site abort. Other than that the training is pretty much the same. The only difference I noticed during a night launch was that the beach was lit up bright as day and things I didn’t notice during a day launch I noticed at night because they were illuminated primarily by the SRBs instead of the sunlight.
