Mastodawn

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial 14h ago

RF folks: am I right in thinking that the three big masts surrounding the launch pad are supporting big helical antennas on the top? big white corkscrew looking things pointing directly up.

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial 14h ago

speaking of which it looks like they got a radio glitch on the telemetry, a single sample lost to 5s of radio lock loss (0.1Hz transmit period). they're on a hold to investigate but have concluded that it's not a violation.

checks complete, radio lock restored, no constraints, hold cleared, everyone reports go for T-10m to launch!

crew's response to go check was "FULL SEND!", gotta love it

seems it took them a minute to do some busywork but they just continued T-10m

"somebody asked if there's a launch button and there certainly is not" gotta love the public lol

they retracted the walkway. launch abort system is armed, liquid hydrogen pressurisation is underway.

final checks underway on the RS25 cryo engines. just T-3m30 now

why is the gimbal test cute 😂 wiggle wiggle

all systems go, T-60s to launch

ALS takeover!

just a few seconds now

LIFTOFF

approaching max-Q

throttle down to 85%, SRBs separated

fairing jettisoned, they're going strong!

all four engines made it all the way to MECO! always nice to get nominal when you only need 3/4 to get you there

core stage separation was one hell of a view

onboard camera feeds seem to be a bit iffy, but otherwise everything looks good

250 miles from earth

loving the KSP style navball in mission control

they've been triple checking the power systems because one of the battery temperatures read way off before launch due to what they are fairly sure is a sensor failure. all looks good though.

solar arrays are deploying. once they're out and locked they'll be fully out of the ascent stage and will switch to Abort To Orbit (ATO) mode

"we're happy to report that Jeremy has the O2 sensors on" good to know, thanks Jeremy

ground showing 7 second error between the MET clocks on Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) and another system (I missed the name, sorry), but crew reports their end shows them in perfect alignment.

if you're familiar with doing a circularisation burn at apoapsis in KSP, that's essentially what we're coming up on.

(got those mixed up for a moment! they're coming up on apoapsis, burning to raise periapsis)

"we don't burn at perigee, we burn a bit earlier, around apogee" well that's probably a good thing given that perigee is currently somewhere near the ground

Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

just broke 1000 miles from earth!

mission control calling in checks to confirm go for MCC

broadcast is showing other clips now, bit annoying. I was hoping to see the solar panels lock into the forward position ready for ICPS burn

someone surprised the host lol

solar arrays locked in forward orientation, we have ICPS stage ignition, RL10 engine nominal, perigee raise maneuver burn underway!

just a 26 second burn for circularisation, doesn't take much once that main engine mass is gone.

ICPS cutoff.

the video feed from the craft is absolute potato, sadly.

oh god they forgot to install a filter in the toilet

this raised a smirk from one of the ground control staff

White Sands Test Facility has telemetry but Houston does not, investigation ongoing.

this probably explains why the video feed is potato

Houston in the blind due to the TDRSS satellite not relaying properly.

Mission Control has copied that the toilet filter was not installed as expected, they have instructed the crew to install a fresh one (thankfully they have spares!)

and while they're fixing the toilet Houston is rebooting their machines to try to get their forward radio link back up. seems like the TDRSS West switchover didn't work.

link back up!

voice check on TDRSS loud and clear both ways

host tactfully referring to the toilet as "life support" is cracking me up

Houston just told them to boot up the toilet.

host: "the uh, the uhh waste systems... onboard"

for folks who were watching a YouTube feed that stopped, you can carry on watching through NASA Live.

sounds like the space piss drama has been averted

wait no the toilet shut down with a fault light

penguin42 12h ago

@gsuberland Hang on, has your toilet got an amber fault light?

@gsuberland You mean like https://www.nasa.gov/live/ ? :)

NASA Live - NASA

NASA

@adamshostack yes, that's precisely the one. (and linked from the root of this thread, but very long now)

gaytabase 12h ago

@gsuberland yeah but nasa live sent me to that youtube feed...

@dysfun yeah it's weird. I think some people were watching on one of the news station stream mirrors, and they mostly stopped

Canageek 12h ago

@gsuberland can you send me a link for that, I was having a real hard time finding that on NASA+, plus even though it had a big live thing showing, was I searching the wrong service?

@Canageek just https://nasa.gov/live

NASA Live - NASA

NASA

Partially domesticated raccoon 12h ago

@gsuberland clearly I dropped from the feed too soon lol

Multi Purr Puss

12h ago

@gsuberland which live stream are you watching? (YT/nasa finished 30-ish minutes ago)

@platymew NASA Live.

Multi Purr Puss

12h ago

@gsuberland (@f4grx) i see, they must've spun up another stream (edit: likely, in order to shed load off the YouTube infrastructure - serving 2.2M concurrent viewers, all over the globe was quite impressive!); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3kR2KK8TEs

NASA's Artemis II Live Mission Coverage (Official Broadcast)

This feed will provide continuous coverage of Artemis II mission activities with live commentary, beginning with tanking of the SLS (Space Launch System) roc...

YouTube