Dudes, spaceship!

SpaceX's Falcon 1, which could potentially be the first private space-launch to orbit (previous launches like SpaceShip 1 cleared the atmosphere but didn't reach orbital velocities) is supposed to go up today. Actually, it was supposed to launch a couple of minutes ago but the (literally) last-second computer-check of the various components turned up a problem so they're going to delay it a little while while they fix things (which is good because I'm pretty sure I've figured out how to sync up David Bowie's "Space Oddity" so that the launch in the song happens at the same time as the real-life launch, which as I'm sure you understand is critical for this sort of thing.)

They'll likely make another attempt in an hour or two. You can see a live Webcast of the launch here. Click the green "zoom-out" button in the lower right-hand corner to get the countdown.

EDIT: it looks like it might actually launch within the next twenty minutes or so. Hopefully you read this thread before that happens! They'll probably have recordings of the launch posted afterwards but it's just not the same.

EDIT AGAIN: The "liftoff" bit occurs at 1:05 in this YouTube video, so remember to press "play" at T-1:05!

Comments

  • edited August 2008
    Bandwidth issues this far away prevent me from watching it live :(
  • edited August 2008
    Okay, they've restarted the countdown. 9 minutes to launch!
  • edited August 2008
    Launch! This is totally worth a double post!

    EDIT: Anomaly? WTF?

    EDIT AGAIN: Damnit, I was hoping they'd keep the camera on until it got to orbit. Looks like the webcast is over. Still don't know what that "anomaly" that they mentioned was.