OMG it's the SpaceX Party Thread!

[ugordan]

View looking at the pad, you can see debris being kicked out of the flame trench:

[kcrick]

Congrats to SpaceX on a successful launch !!!

Watched it on NasaTV and then just had a chance to catch up on the NSF coverage, which was excellent! Keep it up !

Here's to a successful berthing to the ISS and splashdown!

[rabar10]

Any videos of the post-launch NASA press conference available?

[Rex Chan]

Any videos of the post-launch NASA press conference available?

[kevin-rf]

View looking at the pad, you can see debris being kicked out of the flame trench:

Looks to be about the right size to be a member of the press

So that's how Elon handles the non kool-aid drinkers, free tickets to watch from the flame trench

[JohnFornaro]

Congrats to SpaceX!  Way to go kids!

[rklaehn]

Congratulations to spacex, nasa and everyone involved.

We put the dragon orbit on the heavens-above page.
http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=38348

Unfortunately it is viewable only in the very early morning from europe. If we get clear skies I will get up in the middle of the night anyway to see it. My two toddlers will dutifully remind me 

[Norm38]

A little post launch celebration music

[MP99]

Congratulations to spacex, nasa and everyone involved.

We put the dragon orbit on the heavens-above page.
http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=38348

Unfortunately it is viewable only in the very early morning from europe. If we get clear skies I will get up in the middle of the night anyway to see it. My two toddlers will dutifully remind me 

Presumably this means it will come up in SatTrack (the Android app previously known as Heavens Above)?

Any idea what sort of magnitude it's likely to appear if it's reasonably high in the sky?

Thanks, Martin

Edit: my first sighting is shown as 24th, but presumably Dragon will have performed various manoeuvres by that time.

[wolfpack]

Congrats to SpaceX!

If the KSC gift shop would put the Dragon t-shirts online, I'd buy one.

[e of pi]

Presumably this means it will come up in SatTrack (the Android app previously known as Heavens Above)?

I dunno, will it? I haven't seen things like X37B, Tiangong-1, or Phobos-Grunt in the app...or do I just not have it synced/setup properly?

[rklaehn]

Congratulations to spacex, nasa and everyone involved.

We put the dragon orbit on the heavens-above page.
http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=38348

Unfortunately it is viewable only in the very early morning from europe. If we get clear skies I will get up in the middle of the night anyway to see it. My two toddlers will dutifully remind me 

Presumably this means it will come up in SatTrack (the Android app previously known as Heavens Above)?

Yes. SatTrack is an android application that does screen-scraping to get the data from our website. So anything that is on our website you should be able to see with SatTrack. We are going to release our own android and iphone app in the future, so we had them change the name.

Any idea what sort of magnitude it's likely to appear if it's reasonably high in the sky?

We gave it a slightly lower magnitude than the ATV as an educated guess. But we are getting predictions for the brightness from the SEESAT mailing list, so we will have a more accurate estimation of the brightness in a day or two.

Edit: my first sighting is shown as 24th, but presumably Dragon will have performed various manoeuvres by that time.

The exact times will change a bit once they do some maneuvering. We get regular TLE updates from spacetrack, so what you get on the heavens-above page should be reasonably accurate.

[kevin-rf]

We are going to release our own android and iphone app in the future, so we had them change the name.

Drool.... It is the first place I look when I see something glide across the sky.

Can I request a feature? Enter a time and magnitude range, and it will provide all the tracks across the observers sky during that period.

Oh, and to make the this spaceX related, I look forward to finding the dragon using Heavens-Above.

[PahTo]

Congrats to SpaceX!  I did manage to get up and watch the launch and solar array deploy before re-retiring.  Best in the coming days--approach and berthing will be exciting!

[MP99]

Congratulations to spacex, nasa and everyone involved.

We put the dragon orbit on the heavens-above page.
http://www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=38348

Unfortunately it is viewable only in the very early morning from europe. If we get clear skies I will get up in the middle of the night anyway to see it. My two toddlers will dutifully remind me 

Presumably this means it will come up in SatTrack (the Android app previously known as Heavens Above)?

Yes. SatTrack is an android application that does screen-scraping to get the data from our website. So anything that is on our website you should be able to see with SatTrack. We are going to release our own android and iphone app in the future, so we had them change the name.

Any idea what sort of magnitude it's likely to appear if it's reasonably high in the sky?

We gave it a slightly lower magnitude than the ATV as an educated guess. But we are getting predictions for the brightness from the SEESAT mailing list, so we will have a more accurate estimation of the brightness in a day or two.

Edit: my first sighting is shown as 24th, but presumably Dragon will have performed various manoeuvres by that time.

The exact times will change a bit once they do some maneuvering. We get regular TLE updates from spacetrack, so what you get on the heavens-above page should be reasonably accurate.

Thanks for multiple answers.

Re exact times - just need to make sure not to plan too far ahead.

cheers, Martin

[rklaehn]

We are going to release our own android and iphone app in the future, so we had them change the name.

Drool.... It is the first place I look when I see something glide across the sky.

Can I request a feature? Enter a time and magnitude range, and it will provide all the tracks across the observers sky during that period.

I will forward it to my boss Chris Peat, who does most of the work on the website and the apps. The first version of the app will be a very simple one with an educational focus, targeting a teenage audience.

However, once we got the calculation and prediction code (SGP8 etc.) ported to android and iphone, we will also do a more full-featured app for adults.

Oh, and to make the this spaceX related, I look forward to finding the dragon using Heavens-Above.

Me too. Unfortunately it is quite clouded here in munich right now.

[kirghizstan]

I'm at work right now and across the street I can see a local pharmacy doing an Oxygen delivery. The boil off gave me goosebumps as I thought about thismorning's launch

[PeterAlt]

Beautiful launch! I watched it live in my front yard streaming on my iPad, then - sometime after liftoff - in the northern sky. Not like a shuttle night launch - which is vey luminescent, but more like the luminosity of a single fire cracker, fading northward and upward, unmistakeable, though.

I'm in West Palm Beach, which is several hours south of Cape Canaveral.

[TexasRED]

Ok so I'm late but who cares -  congrats to all who worked the launch!

Here's to the mission.

[Lars_J]

This extended NASA TV coverage clip of the launch has some angles not seen in the SpaceX feed: (plus lots of reaction shots from SpaceX launch and mission control centers)



It is also pretty amazing to see how young the average age of the people at SpaceX are... I knew it was low, but it hadn't actually hit me until seeing this video. Amazing.