Ad Astra!

[Skyfire77]

SpaceX launch today!
NASA astronauts Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, and Mike Hopkins, and astronaut Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency - who constitute the crew of NASA's Crew-1 mission - inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft stands tall on the launch pad at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida

Launch is scheduled for 7:27pm EST (00:27:17 UTC), and the crew will be heading out to the Teslas at about 4pm. Can't wait! I'm watching on

, but there's also the

feed as well.

Ok, this:

Totally cool.

[MM54]

I'm looking forward to it, hope the weather holds out

[Rusty Vandura]

@mm54 Thanks for the content! Also, please see email from me.

[Rusty Vandura]

@skyfire77 They make it look actually cool. You're not a pilot, are you?

[Skyfire77]

@rusty-vandura I had some coursework in high school, but no, not a pilot, I just really love aviation. It's in the family, my uncle was a mechanic for USAir, his eldest son is a pilot and his youngest son works for NASA as a contractor, and I have another cousin who is an ATC.

[Rusty Vandura]

@skyfire77 So what's your own line of work?

[Skyfire77]

@rusty-vandura Banking, actually. I had a couple different temp jobs during college, and I found I liked international banking. I've bounced back and forth between two different banks here as things have shifted.

[Rusty Vandura]

@skyfire77 Ugh. That sounds BORING! But who cares what I think? My wife and I went through TSA today where everyone was acting like a bunch of miserable conscripts -- letter to the mayor of Salt Lake City to follow -- and my 8th grade classroom was looking pretty good.

[RallyDarkstrike]

@skyfire77 Watching now! I'm not a Tesla fan, but I still think you can't deny what SpaceX has managed to do....it's a pretty insane achievement!

[CarsOfFortLangley]

@skyfire77 I love the Nasa teslas. Cool addition. What's the mission purpose?

[Skyfire77]

@carsoffortlangley This is the first full (4 astronauts) crew launch on a Crew Dragon capsule. There's also supplies and sundries in the trunk. This is a big deal if NASA can get away from buying seats from the Russians.

[CarsOfFortLangley]

@skyfire77 Wow, that is a big deal. Make Nasa Great Again!

[MM54]

They sure make it look easy!

[interstate366]

Ad Astra? How about an Astra Ad?

[Skyfire77]

@skyfire77 Ok, so they're on orbit, but there's a couple of issues that they're working on: three of the four heaters on one of the Draco thruster pods are malfunctioning, regs say only two can be out of commission, so that may be a problem if they can't work it out, and the thermal control system was spiking on takeoff, and the primary and secondary systems faulted, leaving the redundant system to carry the load. Mission Control rebooted the systems, but they're still working an issue with the cabin temperature.

On the other hand: Baby Yoda in space!