UPDATE: They did it!!
For those of you awake right now, Spacex's Falcon 9 rocket with Dragon capsule will be launching from Cape Canaveral, Florida in less than an hour. If successful, this mission will see the first private spacecraft docking at the ISS. Check out the webcast and live text/video updates from SpaceFlightNow:
http://www.spacex.com/webcast/
http://spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/status.html
Dragon won't be docking with the ISS until Friday so don't wait up for it tonight. You'll see the Falcon 9 launch, taking just under 10 minutes to reach orbit at which point Dragon will separate from the second stage of the rocket. Depending on video Tx range, we may also get to see the solar arrays deploying (even the big guys have trouble with FPV!) After the video cuts out there should be a press conference discussing what happened and explaining any anomalies.
As a former SpaceX engineer, I'd be glad to answer any questions (on publicly available info) people have about the launch. Wish them luck!
Comments
As the update above says, the launch was successful and we even saw the solar arrays deploy completely on live video, very exciting!!
@Jack Right, there are still a lot of steps to go through before docking so the mission is by no means over. I left because although it was extremely exciting to to be a part of, I have always wanted to start my own projects (www.event38.com :) ). Elon is big on hiring very young engineers as much as possible. Most of my colleagues were around my age, 22-27, and had little prior experience. I entered fresh out of school (BS Aerospace Eng) and it was something of a miracle that I did get in.
@Monroe Prometheus sounds awesome! I'd love to see some of that stuff open sourced ;)
Wow awesome FPV video! That's likely to scare some people though :)
Here's a guy who got video of the launch from his FPV radian. What a great idea!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KburnQRulRQ
The obvious question is why you left SpaceX & who normally gets in. As one who tried & failed 5 times to get in, reading about John Muratore & watching whoever was on the webcast give their biographies, it definitely comes across as equivalent to getting into the astronaut core. Military service, lots of grad school, many years in high profile aerospace projects are normal.
That was exciting. So many low cost spacecraft have failed at so many points. The solar panel deployment was a real nail biter. A lot can go wrong before docking & the international partners won't allow any Apollo 13 hacking to make it dock if something does go wrong.
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