SpaceX Falcon 9/Dragon C3, Flight 4 LIVE LAUNCH THREAD

SpaceFlightNow.com ^ | 7OCT2012 | Unknown

[Jack Hydrazine]

SpaceX is poised to start work on a $1.6 billion contract with NASA today, when a Falcon 9 rocket is set to blast off with 882 pounds of supplies on the first operational commercial cargo flight to the International Space Station. Tonight's liftoff time is 8:35 p.m. EDT/5:35 p.m. PDT (0035 GMT). The capsule will return to Earth in late October with approximately 1,673 pounds of equipment from the space station.

[tet68]

Will check in later.
Bump.

[Jack Hydrazine]

Related articles for reading:

Commercial resupply of space station blasts off Sunday
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/004/121005preview/

Dragon launch cargo manifest
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/004/launchmanifest.html

[JRandomFreeper]

Did they get the ice cream on board? I watched the NASA presser on that yesterday, and they weren't sure it was loaded.

/johnny

[Jack Hydrazine]

Other websites for viewing the launch.

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/

http://new.livestream.com/spacex

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html (in HD)

For Apple’s iPhone, iPod and iPad users.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/nasatv_live_iphone.html

[Jack Hydrazine]

Don’t know. I’ll have to check on that.

[Jack Hydrazine]

For Twitter users you can follow the launch here.
http://twitter.com/spaceflightnow/

[NonValueAdded]

Brevard County, Florida ping.

Let me know if you want on or off this ping list.
(not associated with the county government)

[Jack Hydrazine]

Today’s flight is the first commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station, but it’s the second time SpaceX has launched a Dragon capsule to rendezvous with the complex.
In May, the company completed a round-trip flight to the outpost, delivering limited supplies on what was largely a demonstration mission to prove Dragon’s ability to safely reach the space station.

“The 2,000-plus men and women of SpaceX have been working very hard to make this mission go a little bit smoother than the prior,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president.

NASA and SpaceX jointly funded development of the Falcon 9 and Dragon vehicles, with the government providing $396 million in payments as SpaceX accomplished development milestones.

SpaceX has spent a total of $1.2 billion working on the Falcon rocket family and the Dragon spacecraft.

This time, Dragon is loaded with science experiments and spare parts needed by the space station.

“The Dragon is largely the same, although we are carrying the full complement of cargo racks,” Shotwell said.

“We’re taking about 1,000 pounds of cargo up,” Shotwell said. “This is the first time we’re taking powered cargo up. we’re taking up a GLACIER freezer, which has refrigerated science samples in it. This is also the first time we’re going to bring back a GLACIER as well. we’re quite excited about the mission both up and back.”

At today’s launch countdown gets underway, the weather team continues to give a 60 percent chance of acceptable conditions for liftoff at 8:35 p.m. EDT. Thick clouds, anvil cloud and precipitation in the flight path are the launch rules that could be violated tonight.

[JRandomFreeper]

If they are 100% on the cargo racks, and only carrying 1000 lbs, there must be a lot of soft goods (clothes/food) going up this time.

/johnny

[Jack Hydrazine]

According to this news report the ice cream has been loaded.

SpaceX launch today includes Santa Monica High Silly Putty experiment

By Hans Laetz, City News Service
Posted: 10/07/2012 12:19:12 PM PDT
Updated: 10/07/2012 12:20:00 PM PDT

(excerpt)

“Among the cargo heading up is freezers for scientific specimens to be sent back to Earth, and the spaceship will return with almost twice as much stuff as is going up this time. Extra space in the freezers has been loaded with ice cream for the astronauts, cosmonauts and other space explorers onboard the Iinternational Space Station.”

[KevinDavis]

[SamAdams76]

I like it when rockets go up in the air

[GeronL]

big bump

[telstar12.5]

..hard to get excited over 884 lbs. of chickenshit cargo...

how many launches will it take to put a new toilet up there?

[JRandomFreeper]

I imagine that TP and the disposable paper bathtowels are going, as well.

It may be chickenshit cargo, but they gotta have that stuff, too.

/johnny

[Jack Hydrazine]

This may not be an appropriate reply to your comment but it is hilarious!

[hattend]

An old Air Force buddy of mine is the HMFIC of weather for this flight.

Go Mike!

Go Dragon! Go Falcon!

[SunTzuWu]

Thanks for the reminder. I’ve got NASATV up on the big screen.

[dayglored]

T minus 15 minutes and all looks good.

http://www.spacex.com/webcast/ has a great pre-flight program going on. Cute space-babe too.