Rocket Science

[Ian]

One of my wife's college roommates is an engineer at Orbital Sciences and they're launching a rocket this Friday for an ISS resupply mission.  The launch is scheduled for 1:40pm out of the Wallops Island launch facility on the eastern shore of VA.  So mid-atlantic folks, keep your eye on the Eastern Horizon this Friday if you want to watch it, or Ed, play hooky from work and go to the launch!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/index.html#.U7xUrPldUfQ

[Sir Douglas]

Cool! Will there be Kerbals on board?

[Sir Edward]

Awesome! Yeah, I wish I could play hooky this week, but I don't think that's going to happen.

Hopefully it'll be a completely successful launch, and not your typical Kerbal flight with all the wobbly and explodey stuff.

[Ian]

Delayed a day to Saturday at 1:14 EDT.  I think they were supposed to roll out the rocket to the pad today but the storm prevented that.

[Sir Edward]

Still won't make it. We'll be at a wedding this weekend. Doh!

[Ian]

They'll be launching a Cygnus resupply module for the ISS.  The launch vehicle will be an Antares rocket.  You can see the payload and the rocket with payload attached in these photos.

[Sir William]

Saturday, at 1:14pm EDT?  I'll be watching...wonder if I'll see anything from Bowie, MD.

[Ian]

Saturday, at 1:14pm EDT?  I'll be watching...wonder if I'll see anything from Bowie, MD.

Sir William, you can follow the schedule here if  it shifts again:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/orbital.html#.U77FO_ldUfQ

[Sir Douglas]

Ooh, it looks like they'll have a video stream of the launch on NASA TV. I know what I'll be doing this weekend!

[Sir William]

Saturday, at 1:14pm EDT?  I'll be watching...wonder if I'll see anything from Bowie, MD.

Sir William, you can follow the schedule here if  it shifts again:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/structure/launch/orbital.html#.U77FO_ldUfQ

Thank you, Sir!  Bookmarked.

[Ian]

Successful launch!  My wife and daughter got to be there.  I unfortunately had an MRI scheduled an hour before the launch time and Wallops is over 2 hrs away so I could never get there in time.  If it hadn't shifted to Sunday I would have had some awesome photos!  Doh!

[Sir Nate]

My Math teacher who helped design the current gps satellite showed us a failed rocket launch video.
The rocket began to fly off course so they blew it up.
There's something that your inner 9 year old loves when you see a rocket shoot up and explode

[Sir Edward]

There's something that your inner 9 year old loves when you see a rocket shoot up and explode

And that's half the fun of playing Kerbal Space Program on the computer.