Launch planned for this Thursday morning, at 7:05 am EST. (launch window of 2 hours and 39 minutes) The weather forecast is giving a 60% chance of favorable conditions for launch.

This is NASA's first manned craft capable of taking people to orbit since the Space Shuttle. This mission is an unmanned test flight - manned flights won't come until the Early 2020's. It will ride on top of the nation's current largest rocket (Delta IV Heavy) for this mission only, and will ride on NASA's SLS (which is currently being built) for all of it's other missions.

Orion will travel farther out from Earth than any human capable craft has done since 1972!

Here's a handy dandy infographic describing the launch:

12/2/2014 12:22:37 PM

Hope we can figure this space shit out before ISIS kills us all

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

12/2/2014 12:37:25 PM

I mean...is it just me or has it taken us about 40 years to get back to the same design we started with?

12/2/2014 2:24:53 PM

Just think... after that thing re-enters, somebody has to fill out thermal protection system (TPS) reports

12/2/2014 2:52:42 PM

^^i suppose it works haha

12/2/2014 7:50:34 PM

Form follows function... the capsule shape makes much more sense for a craft hitting the atmosphere at the speeds it would coming from the moon and beyond.

12/2/2014 8:10:39 PM

Quote :

"I mean...is it just me or has it taken us about 40 years to get back to the same design we started with?"

When designing spacecraft you have to take the mission into account before you do anything. The Apollo crew module's mission was leave LEO and head to the moon and come back. The only payloads it (and the service module) was delivering were humans, lunar rovers, and stuff like that. The Shuttle was designed to stay in orbit around the earth and deliver cargo into space (to build the ISS). It was hauling all sorts of satellites and ISS nodes up there as well as people. If all we had to do was send people into space then we would have stayed with a crew module design. On top of that, the amount of technology that was developed during the design and use of the space shuttle was tremendous for the space industry.

12/2/2014 10:13:08 PM

I am just happy to see we are finally moving back to exploring deep space. I hope I am still around to see the Mars mission when it occurs.

12/3/2014 10:45:34 AM

Isn't this capsule bigger than Apollo era capsules too?

12/3/2014 10:48:21 AM

Yes. Orion has about 50% more volume than Apollo and can hold 4-6 astronauts.

[Edited on December 3, 2014 at 11:01 AM. Reason : .]

12/3/2014 10:58:39 AM

12/3/2014 12:03:34 PM

What is it with damn boats in the safety range?

12/4/2014 6:55:12 AM

^ beat me to it. This is 2 launches now lately with boats screwing stuff up.

12/4/2014 7:04:41 AM

new launch time 7:17

12/4/2014 7:06:34 AM

7:17 is new launch time. Guess they anticipate boat will clear range at that time?

12/4/2014 7:06:47 AM

Orion on internal power!!

12/4/2014 7:08:30 AM

Go for launch!

12/4/2014 7:11:22 AM

Looks like shit is about to get real here.

12/4/2014 7:11:30 AM

Fucking winds too high.

12/4/2014 7:14:06 AM

they are NASA... can't they do something about the winds?

12/4/2014 7:17:27 AM

The least they could do is geo-engineer some nice weather. Get some more chemtrails up there or something!

12/4/2014 7:22:05 AM

^chemtrail budget was slashed by sequestration

12/4/2014 7:24:17 AM

Now we are on extended hold. Fun.

12/4/2014 7:29:48 AM

astronomy lesson plan today: watch launch.

12/4/2014 7:29:51 AM

7:55 new launch time!

12/4/2014 7:48:03 AM

internal power!

12/4/2014 7:48:50 AM

Countdown is on. And now its off again.

[Edited on December 4, 2014 at 7:52 AM. Reason : Fuck this cocktease shit.]

12/4/2014 7:51:37 AM

damn you wind

12/4/2014 7:55:24 AM

i've been waiting for over 2 years for this launch... i guess i can wait a few hours.

12/4/2014 7:59:18 AM

Orion is a tease.

12/4/2014 8:15:40 AM

8:26!

12/4/2014 8:16:06 AM

Internal power! (again)

12/4/2014 8:18:50 AM

ugh my fucking stream died!!

12/4/2014 8:23:54 AM

ugh hold.

12/4/2014 8:24:59 AM

Yea WTF happened to the stream? Mine rolled back like 30 seconds.

12/4/2014 8:25:40 AM

now that more people are awake i'm sure it's getting slammed.

12/4/2014 8:26:54 AM

fucking launch damn it

12/4/2014 8:33:06 AM

just over an hour left in today's launch window. (defined so that there will be daylight during launch and landing.)

12/4/2014 8:39:17 AM

Welcome to the wonderful world of Day of Launch wind placarding.

12/4/2014 8:56:57 AM

That's cool that they have UAV to watch the splashdown site.

12/4/2014 9:13:33 AM

If anyone wants a copy of the mission patch for whatever reason:



[Edited on December 4, 2014 at 9:22 AM. Reason : ]

12/4/2014 9:20:22 AM

if they make another attempt today, they are going to disable the auto-shut off due to wind and do it manually.

12/4/2014 9:28:52 AM

14 minutes to launch.

12/4/2014 9:30:13 AM

Recommending scrub

12/4/2014 9:35:00 AM

Booooo

12/4/2014 9:35:23 AM

12/4/2014 9:35:54 AM

The good news is that we get to do it all again tomorrow!

12/4/2014 9:40:59 AM

faulty valve? seems like shit is always faulty on these missions. also, I think we're going to have to figure out how to beat a little wind if we're truly thinking of deep space/planatary/etc. explorartion.

C'MON MAN!


[Edited on December 4, 2014 at 9:43 AM. Reason : ,]

12/4/2014 9:41:45 AM

I don't think it's a matter of beating the wind; it's a matter of having as few variable factors (e.g. wind gusts) as possible when launching an expensive and potentially dangerous rocket.

12/4/2014 9:47:11 AM

And I'm saying the process and technology needs to be advanced to where such a variable is negligible except in extreme cases.

12/4/2014 9:50:13 AM