Spacex Launch April 30: Animation, Photos

[Space Racer]

Dragon Descent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=nbHj4P81voA#!

[Space Racer]

Falcon/Dragon gallery/slideshow,

from the April 2011 arrival of Falcon 9's first stage at SLC-40, Cape Canaveral, to Dragon's disembarkation from the ISS. The slideshow is in reverse order.

Pictures have been added to the gallery from time to time, so there may be more on the way. As of this posting, there are 61 photos:

http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/comm...ery-index.html

[Space Racer]

60 Minutes Video

The Main Stream Media have all but ignored the incredible accomplishments of Elon Musk and Spacex over the last two months. This (updated) 15-minute segment does them some justice:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?...;storyMediaBox

[Space Racer]

SpaceX may soon qualify for military contracts:

http://www.spacenews.com/military/12...-payloads.html

[Space Racer]

Dragon arrives in Los Angeles, five days after splashdown:

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/003/120605port/

[Space Racer]

Well, that dang KSC video feed/countdown clock has fooled me twice so far (posts 16 and 38), but it's up and running again. Let's see if it sticks this time.

http://countdown.ksc.nasa.gov/elv/

The top two counters are clocks showing the present time, starting with the day of the year.

Here's what it looks like:

[Space Racer]

Success!

I watched the Pegasus launch on the KSC video feed via Real Player and also on SpaceflightNow's Livestream connection. There wasn't much to see because the launch was at night. I saw Pegasus fall away from the plane and disappear. After that, it was all diagrams and commentary. The launch went well.

Real Player's video feed stayed mostly real-time with an occasional one or two second pause while the plane was on the ground, but got sporadic after the plane took off. There may have been a bandwidth problem at my end. The countdown clocks ran smoothly throughout.

The Livestream webcast stayed current. It included live commentary and flightpath diagrams, along with a short animation sequence. But it waited until shortly before takeoff before it came online.

There were no diagrams or commentary on the Real Player feed. There was a flightpath diagram on a separate channel, but it didn't make much sense without commentary, and I had no desire to switch to it during launch operations.

[Space Racer]

How does the Falcon 9 Heavy compare with the Delta 4 Heavy?

http://www.nss.org/articles/falconheavy.html

[Space Racer]

Grasshopper is on the launch pad.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n...hopper/photos/

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1207/10grasshopper/

[Space Racer]

Florida Today pre-launch broadcast, 19 May 2012

This video is an hour and 48 minutes long. It gets boring at 1:10, when they start talking about stuff to see at KSC. Skip to 4:55 to get past the dead space at the beginning.

http://www.livestream.com/floridatod...edium=ui-thumb

[Space Racer]

Spacex Cleared for Cargo Flights

The next launch is tentatively scheduled for 8 October 2012.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1208/24cots/
http://www.spacenews.com/civil/12082...-resupply.html

[Space Racer]

Countdown Rehearsal Photos 31 August 2012

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/falcon9/004/wdrgallery/

[Space Racer]

Grasshopper test flight plans:
http://spaceports.blogspot.fr/2012/0...t-flights.html

Falcon 9 upgrades, "v1.1":
http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.as...d-bb5a8a3ad59b

Boeing CST-100 development may come to an end:
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/art...apsule-376515/

SpaceX lands another commercial contract:
http://www.spacenews.com/launch/1209...x-backlog.html

October launch window is wide open:
http://www.space.com/17654-spacex-dr...ion-cargo.html

Launch manifest:
http://www.spacex.com/launch_manifest.php