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SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon Launch Webcast (starts at 12:00am PDT)
- DavidSJ 14y agoAnd http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html
- est 14y agoand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLKRHzcP5cU&feature=lb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLKRHzcP5cU&feature=lb
- wgd 14y agoIs the music they're playing during the countdown something identifiable? It's the kind of thing that's perfect for playing over and over for hours without getting repetitive.
- clebio 14y agoTen, nine, eight...
- lionheart 14y agoI can't believe I'm staying up to watch this, but it just might be history in the making.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoIf you have NASA TV on your cable/satellite feed its been on since about 11PM PST. Easier to stay up until about 1AM than it was 3AM :-)
- ChuckMcM 14y agoYaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
- rdl 14y agoI'm curious what they will do with the failed check valve from the previous launch.
- jacquesm 14y agoAnalyse the crap out of it to figure out how it passed q&a.
- ajtaylor 14y agoOnly 25 minutes until launch! It's a shame this window is in the dark, but I'm sure it will be awesome to watch anyway.
- mukaiji 14y agoThe best thing about the first aborted launch? We get to see more of Ron Burgundy.
- BrainInAJar 14y agoFailed means exploded. The first launch was aborted.
- mukaiji 14y agohaha it's funny you mention that. I was thinking to myself 1 min ago that technically it's not a failed launch but an aborted one. thanks for pointing it out!
- bdonlan 14y agoNot just technically. That was a _very_ successful test of their launch abort system and engine diagnostics. And of their ground crew for diagnosing and fixing it so quickly :)
- aidenn0 14y agoThe amazing thing for me was when one of their earlier launches aborted and they refueled and launched the same day. That's just obscene turnaround time compared to anything else that can reach LEO. Apparently they couldn't do it this time due to the narrowness of the launch window, not because they couldn't be ready again in a few hours.
- Devilboy 14y agoAny launch you can walk away from!
- excuse-me 14y agoA great one is when you get to reuse the aircraft
- loganfsmyth 14y agoDefinitely staying up to watch this!
- Intermediate 14y agoCan I watch this webcast without flash player?
- est 14y agothere are no live streaming without plugins, yet. Unless you count Quicktime or WMP.
- tom_usher 14y agoIt works on iPad - they're using livestream.com which is the only service I've seen with a decent non-flash live-streaming service - I'm not sure why they don't have the option to serve that to other devices.
- topbanana 14y agoIn case anyone is tempted to purchase their own launch, here is the handy user guide. http://www.spacex.com/Falcon9UsersGuide_2009.pdf http://www.spacex.com/Falcon9UsersGuide_2009.pdf
- dakrisht 14y agoGod speed. Let's make it happen tonight. Hopefully all systems go.
- navneetloiwal 14y agoWhat is the white gas that comes out of the launch vehicle (pre launch)?
- rshm 14y agoliquid oxygen after boiling
- Wawl 14y agoWhat is it for ?
- smithian 14y agoThe tank holds liquid oxygen, which is the oxidizer for the engine. Since oxygen is a gas at the ambient Florida temperature, it boils off all the time. A it boils off, the gas is released into the atmosphere, and the tank is replenished.
- excuse-me 14y agoStrictly speaking the white `gas` is water from the delightfully humid Florida climate condensing in the presence of the extremely cold Oxygen boil off.
- nkoren 14y agoI'm loving the little human touches in the webcast. "And the next day is... Hatch opening day!! YAY!!!" <Does the Happy Dance> "Everything is, uh, go, so we're ready to rock'n'roll!!!" I get the sense that the enthusiasm is completely unscripted.
- hinathan 14y agoWebcast team wiping away tears as the camera cuts back to them. Awesome.
- dakrisht 14y agoSo amazing to see this and experience the launch with them. You can tell how much energy, passion and personal sacrifice these people and their leader, Elon, put into this. It's absolutely beautiful to see. Real innovation, a true testament of our capabilities as human beings. Not a company with 800+ million users that can't even figure out the ad business. :) Congrats guys!
- mkramlich 14y agoIt is kind of sad that Facebook has a $100B valuation considering what SpaceX is doing, and plans on doing. One is just one particular web-profiles-and-chat service, not that hard or original. The other is frickin rocket science.
- mehulkar 14y agoSpaceX is a revolution, not a business (yet). In our world, Facebook's data is more valuable than a revolution. But hey, we might not be dealing with just our world any more :)
- mkr-hn 14y agoSpaceX is a business. You can pay for one of their rockets if you have something to put in orbit.
- reason 14y agoWatching the webcast is exhilarating. Humans are fucking amazing.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- DeepDuh 14y agoIt's getting exciting. Imagine if the moon landings would be taking place with today's mass communication capabilities. Hope I can live through the next such event (heck even an asteroid would do).
- AliCollins 14y ago2 minutes....!!
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- hinathan 14y agoThis is a long read but worth the historical perspective, it's the Apollo 11 landing, annotated transcripts of the voice communications between mission control and the astronauts: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.landing.html http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11.landing.html
- ubernostrum 14y agoFor even longer reads: http://spacelog.org/ http://spacelog.org/
- hinathan 14y agoNew to me, thanks!
- AliCollins 14y agoLift off!!!
- est 14y agoand it's lift off.
- ErrantX 14y agoOh man, I timed that perfectly :) woke up 10 minutes ago, click link just now - T - 25. And away she goes
- possibilistic 14y agoIt was amazing to watch! I'm so happy to see it go smoothly so far. It means so much for the future of space exploration. Way to go, Elon! If you can keep this up, history isn't going to forget you.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- dakrisht 14y agoLiftoff!!! Good luck SpaceX & Elon Musk
- PaulAnunda 14y agoI got chills watching the vehicle lift off the launchpad. Hats off to Mr. Musk/SpaceX.
- SquareWheel 14y agoThat was amazing to watch.
- tanvach 14y agoI love that little roll correcting nozzle twitching
- jaems33 14y agoThis is the first live space launch I've ever watched.
- mkramlich 14y agolaunch happened. safe so far. second stage sep success. seems to be above atmosphere now...
- catch23 14y agothey mentioned it reached orbit... around the 10 minute mark. pretty fast! I think they mentioned at one point it was traveling at 3km/s. At 12mins, the solar arrays were deployed. They mentioned it would take a few days to dock with the ISS though. I heard lots of cheering during the deployment of the solar array, I'm guessing past missions this has been the turning point?
- aiscott 14y agoI believe this was the first deployment of solar arrays for spacex. The previous orbit was internal power only.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoYup, they've launched a capsule before but in order to be a useful spacecraft the solar arrays are pretty high priority, and this was the first time that whole part of the spacecraft was put to the test.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- mkramlich 14y agoI assume so. I imagine that once that big exploding burning thing has finished and shutdown, a lot of the "Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly" kinds of events become far less likely.
- bond 14y agoThey sure like the word "Nominal"... :)
- ndcrandall 14y agoNominal and Anomaly sound way too similar. I got nervous everytime they said Nominal thinking there was an anomaly! Congrats to SpaceX for a successful launch!
- mkramlich 14y agoI had the same thought about nominal vs anomaly. When the word for a good thing is so close to the word for a bad thing, that's bad. Perhaps they have a standard where they've banned the speaking of "anomaly" on all operations audio channels. I'd ban it.
- jonah 14y agoYes they do! :)
- jmcqk6 14y agoI was wondering what they actually mean by "nominal." According to the dictionaries I can find it means something like "in name only" which doesn't seem appropriate to the context.
- Radix 14y agoMe too. Look at definition 5 at Merriam Websters [1]. I think that definition must be related to definition 3 something is insignificant if it is approximately in line with expectations. [1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nominal http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nominal
- iscrewyou 14y agoMissed it by 4 minutes. Anyone has a recording of the launch?
- javert 14y agoHow long will it take to reach orbit? And the space station? Should I stay up and keep watching? :-P
- ataggart 14y agoAccording to the counter, they called orbit at about T+10 minutes. Solar arrays deployed at T+11:50! And the crowd goes wild!
- PerryCox 14y agoI believe it'll take 2 days before they are ready to dock with the ISS.
- javert 14y agoWell, it was in orbital with solar panels deployed after about 12.5 minutes. Then they said on the video feed that it would be "a couple of days" before it rendezvous with the space station.
- trafficlight 14y agoYeah, they have a series of tests they have to complete over the next few days before NASA will give them the go ahead to dock.
- egor83 14y agoThey've said a few times it'll take the rocket 3.5 days to get to the station. UPDATE: from [1]: Thursday May 24th - approaching station and maneuvering, Friday May 25th - docking, May 31st - return trip to Earth. [1]: http://blog.al.com/space-news/2012/05/spacex_launches_falcon_9_rocke.html http://blog.al.com/space-news/2012/05/spacex_launches_falcon...
- Swizec 14y agoDefinitely the best tech startup on the planet. Those of us doing "web stuff" can go hide in shame.
- ErrantX 14y agoNo way! Don't forget that Musk started out doing "web stuff". Today you are doing web stuff. Tomorrow...
- lionheart 14y agoExactly. The biggest motivator for my "web stuff" is this "space stuff".
- dakrisht 14y agoBeautiful
- bitanarch 14y agoSame here, man. I had my startup and failed. But someday I got to do this.
- pirateking 14y agoSame here. The science fiction dreams of our youth won't realize themselves!
- shadowmatter 14y agoAs someone who bowed out of the SpaceX interview process because he couldn't see himself coding in C++ anymore, and now focuses on web and mobile instead... I wish I shared your confidence right now. That launch gave me goosebumps that no app ever has >.<
- madaxe 14y agoI'm doing web stuff a) because I love it and b) because it'll give me enough capital to bootstrap to the "second stage" (boom boom) of my career - space.
- rdl 14y agoIt's interesting to see how long a lot of the people at SpaceX have been with SpaceX; it's different from most startups. People who had 20+ year careers with USAF or NASA before joining SpaceX back in 2003-2006, and have been there ever since.
- mmaunder 14y ago1000 km downrange the coolest comment just heard was "...and we're picking up data from New Hampshire" in a British accent.
- follower 14y agoWas watching the "live stream" but missed the countdown because somehow the video became 3 minutes delayed behind the actual time. Reloaded the page a couple of seconds into the launch. I only noticed it because the Twitter feed updated correctly... (Edit: Poking around some more it seems the problem occurs when changing the quality setting.)
- rangibaby 14y agoNow in orbit. Congratulations!
- pbreit 14y agoOrbit!
- molmalo 14y agoFalcon 9 is now in orbit!!
- ncarlson 14y agoWe did it! We fucking did it! (Humanity, that is)
- sasha-dv 14y agoFalcon 9 is in Orbit! Hell yeah!
- haberman 14y agoIt blows me away that an object can go from standing on the ground to being in orbit in less than 10 minutes.
- rplnt 14y agoYou have to consider how low that orbit is. ISS is closer to earth than SF is to LA for example.
- InclinedPlane 14y agoIt still requires travelling at mach 25, that's a lot of velocity to put under the belt in such a short amount of time.
- dalke 14y agoSkyscrapers aren't that tall either. Burj Khalifa is only 830 meters tall, which is about half the distance from here to the neighborhood store. At 21,000 meters, the U-2 didn't fly that high. That's only a half marathon, and many people can run that distance easily. In other words, I fail to understand your point, even omitting the 7.9km/second sideways velocity for LEO.
- reitzensteinm 14y agoIt doesn't speak to the technical difficulty, but his example, and all of yours, help put the distance into context that we can intuitively understand. It's definitely helpful.
- stcredzero 14y agoThe kinetic energy of 1 kg moving at orbital velocity is about 31 megajoules. The potential energy of the same kilogram suspended 100km overhead is less than a megajoule. Most of the difficulty to orbit isn't distance, it's the amount of energy it takes to get something moving that fast. Actually it's much, much worse than that, because it's actually the change in momentum involved. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_equation
- mbenjaminsmith 14y agoListening to the cheering when the solar arrays deployed made my day.
- mkramlich 14y agodragon has reached orbit and deployed solar/radiator wings. lots of cheering from SpaceX folks heard.
- ajtaylor 14y agoIt made it to orbit!
- reneherse 14y agoHow about that roar from the SpaceX crowd when the solar panels deployed! Way to go humans!!
- SudarshanP 14y agoYAY
- obilgic 14y agoshe was so excited.
- mkramlich 14y agoNot sure if you were referring to her, but I think I saw the company's president Gwynne Shotwell come into the control room and thank everybody. I was hoping to see Elon Musk somewhere too.
- TheDrifter 14y agoHe was at the front of the control room.
- mkramlich 14y agoThank you. I watched the SpaceX video again and now I think I see him sitting at the frontmost table, center, wearing a black shirt. Engineer billionaire playboy CEOs for the win!
- godbolev 14y ago>"Once in orbit, it will take three days for the Dragon to reach the ISS, and two >more days of pre-docking maneuvers to ensure everything is in order before >finally meeting the ISS on the fifth day of the mission. After nine days at the >station, the ISS crew will load the Dragon with return cargo which will be >recovered after the spacecraft splashes down in the Pacific ocean." http://www.geekosystem.com/spacex-iss-mission-tomorrow/ http://www.geekosystem.com/spacex-iss-mission-tomorrow/
- pirateking 14y agoWow that was just fucking awesome in all ways. I really feel pumped up to go to space after watching that. Thank you SpaceX and Elon Musk for unlocking the next frontier.
- wensing 14y agoGot to watch the red fire trail disappear into the clouds over South Florida. So awesome.
- raheemm 14y agoThat was awesome!
- mmaunder 14y agoI don't think we'll ever know how hard it was for a private space startup to convince NASA and the international community to let them dock with the ISS and to work with them to make it happen. Elon Musk is a legend.
- sasha-dv 14y agoElon Musk is a legend. ... and an inspiration! I'm done with CRUD-ing my life away. It's time to tackle some hard problems.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoHonestly, this is the real value. Making the gigantic dreams seem possible again. I've been smiling for an hour now.
- alinajaf 14y agoAlso grinning like an idiot for the past hour. Really made my day, ecstatic that it's been successful. I think I'm still young enough (26) to retrain. I'm not a US citzen, but screw it. This is the future, and I will be a part of it.
- mmaunder 14y agoMission control in 1969: http://i.imgur.com/Siqi6.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Siqi6.jpg Mission control in 2012: http://i.imgur.com/xevZj.jpg http://i.imgur.com/xevZj.jpg
- willyt 14y ago'69 looks more futuristic somehow.
- smithian 14y agoIn '69 all those huge monitors, telemetry displays, and cool panels were high tech. They built a room that screams "I am the future!". Today, all that stuff is commodity hardware that could just as easily be put to the task of playing some computer game or buying shoes as launching a spacecraft. And it inhabits a perfectly normal looking, functional room.
- HairyFotr 14y agoWell this is the most exciting (and literal) launch of a startup I've ever seen.
- mehulkar 14y agoWhy can't I see this webcast? Using Chrome on Linux Mint.
- Jach 14y agoBecause it's over, you missed it.
- Shtirlic 14y agoCongrats to SpaceX team for the great launch!
- architgupta 14y agoCongratulations on the successful launch Elon and Team! Guys, don't beat up other startups and people on what they are doing or will do. Celebrate this for what it is.
- msg 14y agoI was lucky to tune in about ten minutes before launch. I wasn't alive for the Apollo program, and I thought of our space efforts as a little lame as the shuttle program ratcheted down and finally expired over my lifetime. This launch blew all of that away. I just have to figure out how to present it to my seven year old. Godspeed and all the best, SpaceX.
- deepGem 14y agoThe loud cheer when the solar panels were deployed - priceless.
- ortusdux 14y agoIt was truly surreal to stand in the middle of a prairie about 120 miles from Cape Canaveral, have the live cast in the palm of my hand, and watch the rocket off in the distance.
- ataggart 14y agoI often get that feeling: "We're living in the future". It's not quite the future I imagined as a kid, but it's pretty damned cool.
- plinkplonk 14y agoThis is why I admire the USA. With all its faults, I can't imagine a startup like SpaceX happening in any other country on Earth today. Well done, Americans! Be proud! (non US citizen, fwiw)
- asw456 14y agoCould definitely happen in New Zealand. Same can-do attitude, and we have some pretty technical small companies here; just not much money or population base.
- jasonadriaan 14y agoElon Musk is South African
- dagw 14y agoAnd yet he lives and works in the US. That is(was?) America's big strength, not that Americans are the best or the brightest, but that the best and the brightest from all around the world would choose to come to America to realize their dreams.
- jpendry 14y agoAbsolutely, but he worked methodically when he was younger to get both himself and his family into the USA.
- tacitus 14y agoI doubt it was a struggle, since his mother was American-Canadian. Doesn't diminish his accomplishments in any way though.
- mparlane 14y agoWe just don't have the money, that's the biggest problem. Sure, we have a few people in NZ that are very wealthy, but they aren't the type to spend it on stuff like this.
- nkoren 14y agoGods that was fun. Just went through Wikipedia and updated all its articles to reflect that they're 3 for 3 on the Falcon 9. Such a raving fanboi over here.
- aidenn0 14y agoIf the Falcon Heavy works on the first launch, then I'm going to seriously dig to see if Elon Musk sold his soul for such successful launches; the Falcon 9 launches are impressive, but there is so much more that can go wrong in the heavy.
- nkoren 14y agoI actually have high hopes that it'll work on the first try, without too much selling of souls involved. SpaceX is actually pursuing a very sensible incremental route with their designs. They gave themselves the opportunity to learn at the School of Hard Knocks, blowing up their first three Falcon 1 flights, before getting the next two right. By the time they moved on to the Falcon 9, they had five launches and two successes under their belt. The Falcon 9 is actually a fairly incremental upgrade from the Falcon 1: essentially identical engines; nearly identical avionics; just much bigger tanks and more complicated plumbing. It's evident now that this approach has really paid off for them. Similarly, by the time they'll fly a Heavy, they'll have at least five Falcon 9 flights under their belt. And the Heavy is not really much more of a step change from the Falcon 9 than the Falcon 9 was from the Falcon 1: just a lot more of the same engines; very similar avionics, and more complicated plumbing due to the propellant cross-feed system. So, not THAT big a step technically, despite its outrageous payload capabilities.
- nknight 14y ago> blowing up their first three Falcon 1 flights Only the first flight did anything close to "blow up", and the payload was recovered largely structurally intact (sensitive components irreparable). It would almost certainly have been survivable in an LES-equipped capsule. Flights 2 and 3 were prevented from reaching orbit but did not blow up, catch fire, or do anything else that would have precluded a safe, if rather early, return of the crew.
- mkramlich 14y agoOne of my favorite lines on the mission control audio channel, just tossed off in an offhand way: "Vehicle is supersonic."
- mkramlich 14y agoprotip for you day traders out there: SpaceX is a BUY
- dasmoth 14y agoSpaceX is private at the moment, but that's probably going to change. IPO timing is a regular topic of debate among SpaceX-watchers.
- Mvandenbergh 14y agoIt's a private company.
- bhaisaab 14y agoWhen will the actual docking take place? And will they or NASA stream that as well?
- drtse4 14y agoFor those who lost the original webcast: http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/22/3035908/spacex-successful-iss-launch http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/22/3035908/spacex-successful-...
- Johnang 14y agoI am moved again. For nothing, only the humans' advancement. I am a science fans since young. I always have a dream that humans make the colonies on the other planets. Maybe the space travel. However, it can not come true on our era. Last, i really need a time machine to see the future. Really! "Back to the future 1-3" impresses me very deep.
- rodh257 14y agoWhat's the next thing we can watch live? The docking with ISS? when will that be on?
- napoleoncomplex 14y agoI missed it and couldn't find the official recording yet, so here's a youtube of the launch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2_49KPj9jE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2_49KPj9jE And a few moments in the vid which really show how much it means to the team: Solar panels deploying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=e2_49KPj9jE#t=720s http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... The ground crew after the launch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=e2_49KPj9jE#t=840s http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
- simonh 14y agoIt's amazing how exciting this is. It's not as if it's the first time humans have sent an automated delivery capsule into space, yet it feels like a game changing event. Co-incidentally I read a post on HN this morning arguing that the iPhone wasn't special. We already had phones, and palm computers, and downloadable apps. It was no big deal. In the case of both SpaceX and Apple thy've taken something that's existed already, but made it accessible. With SaceX the massively reduced costs has made dreams possible that we all thought were dead. With the iPhone they made a hand computer that my wife's sister, who's hardly ever used a computer in her life, could pick up and understand and fall in love with in minutes. When you take an existing technology, but cut the barriers to entry radically lower (barriers in terms of cost, or usability, whatever) then you have something special. Amazon did this with online shopping, facebook did it with social networks (orkut was a clunky piece of junk - been there). Instagram did it with photo sharing, dropbox did it with file sharing. Identify barriers, in whatever form you find them, and knock them flat. That's where the opportunities are.
- steamboiler 14y agoThe Washington Post article[1] on the launch comments on the the apparent cultural differences between NASA and SpaceX: Many of the SpaceX controllers wore untucked T-shirts and jeans or even shorts, a stark contrast to NASA’s old suit-and-tie shuttle team. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/private-rocket-maker-tries-again-to-launch-eager-to-begin-1st-private-space-station-delivery/2012/05/22/gIQACDhIhU_story.html?hpid=z2 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/privat...
- zokier 14y agoWas the stream 720p or 480p? The reason I'm asking is that I have only found a 480p screencaptured recording of it, and I'd rather watch it in HD. Sadly I missed the live event :( NasaTV has their own video at youtube, but I'd be more interested of the SpaceX version (apparently they were separate streams).
- bdz 14y agothis is the best video so far from inside the crew in the mission control center http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QXzZBk3WaA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QXzZBk3WaA from here to eternity!
- kcima 14y agoFull high quality video of the entire hour long Webcast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-gSkGQnFR8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-gSkGQnFR8
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- greedo 14y agoBravo Zulu, Elon!
- sicxu 14y agoAwesome!
- firefox 14y agoThe only thing hotter than this is the Tesla