

Orion flight test rescheduled for tomorrow - tempestn
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/#.VIAwicl5V8F

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drinchev
New T-zero time 7:17 EST

UPDATE ( 7:14 ) - Ground wind violation, Launch delayed.

UPDATE ( 7:46 ) - New T-ZERO time 7:55

UPDATE ( 7:53 ) - Launch on hold. Another wind violation.

UPDATE ( 8:15 ) - New T-ZERO time 8:26

UPDATE ( 8:23 ) - Launch on hold again.

UPDATE ( 8:28 ) - Left and center booster anomalies ( Valves sensors, showing
not closed ). Quote from official NASA blog : "A fill and drain valve on the
rocket did not function correctly. Standing by as rocket and spacecraft are
safed."

~~~
joezydeco
Now 14:44Z (9:44 EST).

Sounds like they're disabling a bunch of automated safeguards (like the wind
speed monitoring) to get this thing up.

~~~
joezydeco
And it's scrubbed. Back to work, everyone!

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Untit1ed
It'd be really great if NASA found some particularly charismatic engineer to
act as a colour commentator and talk about the technology at play. The silence
while we wait for a new launch time is peaceful but a bit dull...

~~~
spiritplumber
They could have Scott Manley do that. He does a great job with KSP, he'd do
even better with real life stuff, I think. He knows what he's talking about,
doesn't sutter or go "umm", and he sounds pretty hot.

~~~
tomswartz07
"Hullo Its Scott Manley here!"

~~~
azernik
"Fly safe!"

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natch
I opened this up this morning to show my daughter at breakfast, thinking, hey,
getting kids interested in this stuff is good.

Dead silence. Nothing. Not a word of commentary. To a kid, that conveys
boring. I could hear some white noise and after a while some faint public
address system speech way off in the background. So disappointing.

NASA, do you still have an educational component to your mission? It would be
really great if these big launches were explained a bit on the live video
feed. If there's nothing going on to explain, there should be a ton of
material waiting from NASA history to fill the air time.

~~~
tempestn
At least in the hours up to the launch, it was actually really good. There was
a ton of content describing the intended launch, its goals, requirements,
planning that went into it, etc. There was also a segment with Elmo (from
Sesame Street) talking with an astronaut and an engineer (iirc) that I saw,
and apparently another similar special "guest". They probably just didn't have
as much planned for the period after the launch was aborted.

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vital101
NasaTV looks like its struggling with load. Use
[http://www.livestream.com/spaceflightnow](http://www.livestream.com/spaceflightnow)
for a better stream.

~~~
Untit1ed
It boggles my mind that a 12 year old playing DOTA can reliably stream to an
audience but NASA can't figure it out.

EDIT: Seems they've swapped their stream for the ustream one, guess they can.

~~~
jbjorge
The number of viewers might be a bit different.

~~~
Untit1ed
Admittedly looking at the figures on ustream it's a lot more popular than I
thought it'd be, but still less than the higher end of what you see on Twitch,
and they don't get to plan when a stream goes viral.

~~~
eterm
Twitch has had massive growing pains, it's taken them a very long time to get
to a point where they are smooth under load.

For a long time the LCS broadcasts were always very stuttery on twitch, so
much so that streams were also set up on Youtube and Azubu to help.

About 6months - 1yr ago twitch suddenly got a lot better in this regard but I
certainly wouldn't expect NASA to do a better job than a site dedicated to
streaming. (The 12yr old playing the game is a red herring, they're just
streaming to twitch.)

Twitch previously were Justin.tv but switched to gaming as clearly it was a
fast growing niche, otherwise their old platform would have been suitable for
factual content like this.

~~~
Untit1ed
> The 12yr old playing the game is a red herring, they're just streaming to
> twitch

That was basically what I was getting at though - if the 12 year old can
stream off their home broadband to twitch reliably for free, why is NASA
bothering with their own, worse streaming solution?

But to their credit NASA responded very quickly, took their own streaming off
and embedded ustream instead, so I guess I don't really have anything to
whinge about.

------
quarterto
Currently the launch is on hold for a couple of reasons:

1\. There is (was?) a boat in the exclusion zone

2\. The second stage propellant needs more conditioning

The hold was going to end in 2 minutes, they're going to cycle the clock to at
least T-9mins when they've decided exactly when T0 is.

EDIT: as of 12:07 GMT we're at T-10mins.

~~~
kirk21
I don't get why they don't launch if there is a boat. If there is someone with
a death wish, that is his problem. Second time in a few months they have to
scrub for a boat. Idiots should pay a lot of money.

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randallsquared
Scrub for today; trying again in 24h.

~~~
parksy
Fair enough, with the hardware cost, would be a mistake to launch without all
systems in check.

~~~
DigitalJack
True, but if they spent less time going from ready states to standby states
and back again (aka recycling the clock) i bet they could have launched.

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privong
Awesome – the announcer just noted that there's a UAV which will be used to
capture the final descent splashdown of the Orion capsule. That should make
for interesting video. The UAV—Ikhana—looks to be a modified Predator:

[http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/aircraft/Ikhana/index....](http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/aircraft/Ikhana/index.html)

~~~
mikeyouse
That's amazing. SpaceX should get one of those too, I understand the
restriction for manned flights when rockets or capsules are coming back down,
but it was sure frustrating to miss the water 'landing' of that last Falcon-9
due to the chase plane staying so far from the scene.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIlu7szab5I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIlu7szab5I)

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antr
Launch update: it's 12.45pm GMT. Time to launch in 10 min, 7.55am EST.

Update 2: at 7.53am EST, a new launch time being established due to wind
anomalies.

~~~
EvaK_de
New launch time: 08:26

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anurags
You can also follow the NASA Twitter Feed:
[https://twitter.com/NASA](https://twitter.com/NASA)

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tempestn
The coverage is switching between live launch coverage and other NASA stuff
right now. Launch window opens at 7:05am EST.

~~~
bjz_
Some bright soul seems to have sailed their boat into the launch area - looks
like it is going to be delayed :(

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drinchev
Google Earth link of launch site

[https://www.google.de/maps/place/Cape+Canaveral+Air+Force+St...](https://www.google.de/maps/place/Cape+Canaveral+Air+Force+Station+Space+Launch+Complex+41/@28.583466,-80.582914,1000m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x88e0bbabe31ee4cf:0xd3a552dd90e0258b?hl=en)

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jbrooksuk
I've never watched/listened to a live launch before. I'm finding it really
interesting, terms like "race position", the alarm going off and the list of
checks etc.

I'm really excited for this! Let's hope the wind dies down.

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noisy_boy
I've always wanted to know about the steady emission of what looks like
steam/smoke(?) from the upper body (not nozzle) of the rockets in the pre-
launch stage. Anybody knows more about that?

~~~
lfuller
It's liquid oxygen venting.

Oxygen can be kept in a liquid state by either keeping the temperature
extremely low or keeping it under high pressure. Since reinforcing the tanks
to handle incredibly high pressures would require too much weight, the tanks
are instead constantly being topped up with cryogenic fuel until the moment of
launch.

As for the venting: the fuel starts heating up and evaporating as soon as it's
pumped into the tanks causing the pressure within the tanks to rise. Since the
tanks aren't rated for high pressure, they have to vent the excess oxygen to
keep within safety margins.

------
ChikkaChiChi
NASA just showed the world that listening to data and showing restraint is far
more important than grabbing a good headline. Kudos to them for doing the
right thing.

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debacle
I haven't really been following this - was this a previously announced and
planned launch, before the news about Mars yesterday?

~~~
smackfu
Yes, it's been planned for a couple of years.

~~~
debacle
Thanks. To the outside observer it seemed like the two were connected.

~~~
smackfu
It's kind of like, NASA taking advantage of the Orion test flight press to get
their Mars plan out there.

~~~
trhway
well, considering that Orion is intended for beyond LEO missions including
Mars...

~~~
smackfu
Orion is pretty unsuited for a mission as long as a Mars trip. So I doubt the
spacecraft used for that would have anything to do with what they are
currently calling Orion.

~~~
trhway
be my guest
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28spacecraft%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_%28spacecraft%29)
. Search for "Mars".

Of course, it wouldn't be the "long-term deep space habitat" module - that
would be a specialized module.

------
cowardlydragon
... This is just the crew module?

... propulsion is the interesting part of interplanetary travel. What is the
propulsion tech for this?

~~~
JonathonW
This test flight is launching on a Delta IV Heavy, which is a pretty well
proven launch system (first time NASA's used it, though, AFAIK).

Ultimately, Orion's supposed to be launched on NASA's new Space Launch System
[1], but it's not ready yet. I believe the first scheduled test flight for
Orion and SLS together is supposed to be sometime in 2017.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Launch_System)

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corford
New T-ZERO just set at 14:44 UTC (and that's the last possible attempt for
today)

~~~
corford
And... bummer they've just scrubbed the launch for today :(

------
EvaK_de
Anybody understood why the countdown was aborted with only 3 minutes left?

~~~
quarterto
Wind. Again.

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welshguy
Engine bearing temperature trending the wrong way.

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EvaK_de
Everything is GO right now... Winds, too, finally.

~~~
EvaK_de
...and aborted. :(

~~~
washedup
Just on hold.

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SliderUp
Poop. Scrubbed for today.

