pic: Orion is Go for Launch

[Doug G]

Team 701 is also very excited! One of our team members, Jared Ellenberger, works at Lockheed and is an engineer that worked on the capsule ejection system for Orion. He is also a Head Referee at the Colorado Regional.

[Rosiebotboss]

As a 32 year employee of UTAS Space Systems, I too, have hardware on that vehicle. I get just as excited for every launch as I did watching the Mercury and Gemini launches as a kid. LIGHT THAT CANDLE!!!!

[Sparkyshires]

This is amazing. I can't wait!!! where can you go for updates? I really wanna find out what's going on as its happening tomorrow.

EDIT: Nevermind, just found that Orion has a page on NASA's site here.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by Sparkyshires

This is amazing. I can't wait!!! where can you go for updates? I really wanna find out what's going on as its happening tomorrow.

Floridatoday.com is the Brevard County newspaper that always covers launches. Of course the NASA website could also be a very nice place to try as well.

[Sparkyshires]

Originally Posted by dodar

Floridatoday.com is the Brevard County newspaper that always covers launches. Of course the NASA website could also be a very nice place to try as well.

Thanks! Yeah, I just found it at http://www.nasa.gov/orion/ It looks like they're gonna be updating that real time.

[Cory]

http://spaceflightnow.com/

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Cory

http://spaceflightnow.com/

This. It's my personal go-to site for any space news.

[Sparkyshires]

grr weather and valves! hope ya'll will be able to launch in the next hour!

[Rosiebotboss]

Launch scrubbed. 24 hr recycle. Try again tomorrow 0705 EST.

Right off the NASA Orion blog:

The launch team has tentatively set a liftoff time of 7:05 a.m. EST, the opening of a 2-hour, 39 minute window just as today. We will begin our launch coverage at 6 a.m. tomorrow on NASA TV and on the Orion blog. Tune into the blog and NASA.gov for continuing updates throughout the day.

[Sparkyshires]

Thanks! So from a very elementary stand point, could you explain why there is a time window so small? It's not rendezvous-ing with any thing or interacting with any spatial bodies, so I would think it could just launch whenever. Why is this not the case?

[Rosiebotboss]

Launch and recovery during daylight, for one. Tracking space junk that might be in the way, for another. And I'm sure someone else way smarter than me can chime in here with some orbital mechanics reasons.

[Pjohn1959]

My guess is the onboard batteries. Even though they run on external power during the holds, there is still a drain on them. And I think we all know what happens with low powered batteries.