This is just awesome.<p>I'm sitting in the middle of the French country side in a building that was built during Galileo's life time with these links up across three monitors:<p><a href="http://www.n2yo.com/?s=38348" rel="nofollow">http://www.n2yo.com/?s=38348</a><p>mms://a1709.l1856953708.c18569.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1709/18569/v0001/reflector:53708<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=station" rel="nofollow">http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html?param=stati...</a><p>Watching all of this makes me realise just how lucky we are to be alive at this point in human history.<p>Oh and looks like first capture attempt could be as soon as 20ish minutes from now (i.e. 14:02 UTC).<p>Edit: they've just given a go for capture.<p>Edit 2: and here's a screen shot of the Dragon capsule and space station arm: <a href="http://imgur.com/OWit7" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/OWit7</a>
NASA is broadcasting:<p><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html</a><p>Anyone know what time it's expected to dock at?
From <a href="https://spacex.com/updates.php" rel="nofollow">https://spacex.com/updates.php</a><p>"FRIDAY MORNING - Final Approach, Dragon Grapple<p>Around 2:00 AM Pacific/5:00 AM Eastern NASA will decide if Dragon is GO to move into the approach ellipsoid 1.4 kilometers around the space station. If Dragon is GO, after approximately one hour Dragon will move to a location 250 meters directly below the station. Dragon will then perform a series of maneuvers to show systems are operating as expected. If NASA is satisfied with the results of these many tests, Dragon will be allowed to perform the final approach to the space station.<p>Sometime around 6:00 AM Pacific/9:00 AM Eastern, astronauts on the space station will grapple Dragon with the space station’s robotic arm and the spacecraft will attach to the station."
The monitor view that they're occasionally showing displays a reticle over Dragon. Or it's supposed to, but the reticle is a bit off (Kuipers spent some time talking to houston about it).<p>It reminds me of the adventures that Pettit had with camera calibration yesterday, I wonder if there's a connection?<p>Anyway, listening to Pettit talk through the camera calibration yesterday made me think that there's a lot of room for improved UX in the software they use.
Question: if Dragon is about 200m lower than ISS, and they are moving at the same velocity at one instant, wouldn't that put them in different orbits?<p>Assuming ISS's orbit was perfectly circular, then Dragon would be moving too slow for its lower orbit, and would sink down, to its perihelion when on the opposite side of the earth, and so on, oscillating up and down, in an elliptical orbit with respect to ISS.<p>The only solution I see is for Dragon to artificially make its elliptical orbit circular by continuously thrusting upward. But I don't see this in the video stream. Have I got this all wrong?<p><i>EDIT</i> s/too fast/too slow/ # and related edits, thanks mmaunder
Looking at the screen with the cross-hairs it seems like the bottom right set of figures shows the distance to ISS, which was sitting at around 255m, and should go down to 235m (EDIT: was originally supposed to be 220m) before the crew on ISS tells dragon to head back to the 250m mark.<p>Here's hoping that they keep showing these shots from the ISS monitors throughout - kinda like watching someone coding but on a whole different level!
More details about this flight and what it's doing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COTS_Demo_Flight_2" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COTS_Demo_Flight_2</a>
I watched the Nasa feed until 3am last night and now I'm up again watching it.<p>Seeing this gives me hope that we'll eventually get back to exploring the moon and space.
Nasa TV has a hidden video stream for their iPad app (<a href="http://liveips.nasa.gov.edgesuite.net/msfc/Wifi.m3u8" rel="nofollow">http://liveips.nasa.gov.edgesuite.net/msfc/Wifi.m3u8</a>), works great on Safari as well. Post here: <a href="http://t.co/b9jSxeqI" rel="nofollow">http://t.co/b9jSxeqI</a>
Watching the Dragon approach from the point of view of the ISS is incredibly exciting in itself, but almost unbelievable when you think about the speeds they are flying at relative to the ground!
The capture is occurring about now.
Link: <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/ustream.html</a>
Just joined and heard that SpaceX had commanded Dragon to retreat from ISS. Can someone explain why? Also, what is the blinking section on the Dragon spacecraft?