OMG it's the SpaceX Party Thread!

[Maciej Olesinski]

Is it me or Dracos are firing very often? Is it ok? How fast does it drain fuel?

[rickl]

Is it me or Dracos are firing very often? Is it ok? How fast does it drain fuel?

Don't know, but in the press conference Thursday morning they said that they used less fuel than expected for yesterday's maneuvers.

[cro-magnon gramps]

this monitoring is thristy work, just opening bottle two for tonight, apple mead 10%

edit,  Thread Monitoring I mean

[QuantumG]

Anyone ever tried to fly along the R-bar in Orbiter? Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure.. whoever did the GN&C on Dragon is a pro.

[kirghizstan]

Is it me or Dracos are firing very often? Is it ok? How fast does it drain fuel?

Don't know, but in the press conference Thursday morning they said that they used less fuel than expected for yesterday's maneuvers.

I believe it is needed to maintain position on the r-bar

[Maciej Olesinski]

Dragon over Mars 

[dcporter]

Dragon over Mars 

Amazing video quality at that distance!

[majormajor42]

Dragon over Mars 

Amazing video quality at that distance!

Thought it was Venus with all the clouds in most of these shots.

[Duck]

Suspense is killing me... I hate silence in the loop!

-iain

[cro-magnon gramps]

Suspense is killing me... I hate silence in the loop!

-iain

certainly not like the old days with Walter and the other commercial networks; nary a space between words

[Rex Chan]

I'm excited to see the Dragon in daylight at 200m!!!

[rickl]

Suspense is killing me... I hate silence in the loop!

-iain

certainly not like the old days with Walter and the other commercial networks; nary a space between words

Ah yes.  Even when I was a little kid I wished the TV announcers would shut up and let me listen to the voice traffic.  It didn't matter that I didn't understand much of what they were talking about.  I knew I understood at least as much as the TV announcers.

[kirghizstan]

My just turned 2 year old just woke up and came downstairs where the NASA channel is on.  She pointed at dragon and called it a bird

[LegendCJS]

Moved this question here:

There seems to be quite a large difference in distance as measured by the Primary and Secondary distance indicators on the monitor view.  At one point I saw Primary at ~230m and the secondary at ~193m.  Also on the screen is text saying that the primary is LIDAR2.  Could this disagreement in distance be the thermal imagery problem that they are attempting to work with the "extra" stops at 200m and now 150m?

[LegendCJS]

Moved this question here:

There seems to be quite a large difference in distance as measured by the Primary and Secondary distance indicators on the monitor view.  At one point I saw Primary at ~230m and the secondary at ~193m.  Also on the screen is text saying that the primary is LIDAR2.  Could this disagreement in distance be the thermal imagery problem that they are attempting to work with the "extra" stops at 200m and now 150m?

Looking over a few frames there seems to be about 13% difference on average between Primary and Secondary ranges.

Edit:  Assuming that this discrepancy in range is what is causing the abundance of caution we are now seeing, then I have enough data to start postulating the type of error causing the discrepancy.  The 13% difference error seems to be holding steady as the range closes.  I speculate that this points to a multiplicative factor in the range calculations, as opposed to some kind of offset in distance between the features that the LIDAR is ranging against vs the features the thermal images is ranging against.

[Rahkashi]

Why is she flying backwards?

[kirghizstan]

Do you think the other companies are going to have to start being like spacex with webcasts, videos, twitter activity to try and draw the interest that spacex obviously is.  The awareness of this is a lot more than I would have expected and you have to assume that has o help them in the commercial crew contest.

[Chris Bergin]

Do you think the other companies are going to have to start being like spacex with webcasts, videos, twitter activity to try and draw the interest that spacex obviously is.  The awareness of this is a lot more than I would have expected and you have to assume that has o help them in the commercial crew contest.

I'd say so. Orbital are wonderful, but not very "down with the kids" yet. I can imagine someone giving them a shove in that direction.

[Duck]

Re: coverage... This is exactly why I think it's a crying shame there isn't going to be any kind of video (even recorded) of MSL landing on Mars. The GP won't care since there's nothing interesting to see.

-Iain

[sojourner]

Sounds like the thermal imaging guys aren't having as good a day as they had hoped.