Real time mission around the Moon on Orbiter Live Missions!

[fausto]

This is the map of craters and places which will be visible during our lunar orbit stay, between september 11th and 15th.
Wonderful Copernicus crater will be visible during last 4 orbits.

The mission planning technique used are based on best trip/fuel consumption ratio, and they try to take in account our job commitments!

 

[fausto]

This is the launch day! live event will begin at 05:30 UTC, launch 11:19 UTC!

http://www.livestream.com/orbiterlivemissions

 

[n72.75]

I've got my live stream open and my alarm set for 0500EST

 

[vchamp]

Now the rocket on the pad looks like in a real life video Good luck!

 

[Chub777]

T minus ~40 minutes. Good luck on the mission.

 

[fausto]

t -30 minutes!!

 

[Scruce]

Only 8 minutes to go!!

---------- Post added at 12:12 ---------- Previous post was at 12:11 ----------

Tower retracting...

 

[Scruce]

5 minutes!

---------- Post added at 12:14 ---------- Previous post was at 12:14 ----------

Good luck...but no landing...

Maybe next time??

 

[Scruce]

30 Seconds to go...

---------- Post added at 12:20 ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 ----------

Liftoff!!! of Antares ALR-1 to the Moon.

 

[Scruce]

Now we just have to wait for TLI.

 

[Chub777]

Time to TLI: 1 hour 27 minutes.

 

[Scruce]

TLI burn initiated.

 

[fausto]

Antares- lunar TLI stage separation operations will begin at 19:15 UTC

---------- Post added at 07:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:48 PM ----------

Separation complete! We go for the Moon!

 

[Keatah]

Cool! I wanna see moar!

 

[fausto]

If you miss it, mission launch replay:

http://www.livestream.com/orbiterlivemissions/video?clipId=pla_3a3f3e4f-b8d7-4f64-823a-09014acf1d1d

---------- Post added at 07:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 AM ----------

At 19:15 UTC first correction maneuvre operations begins!

We're 180000 miles away from Earth now!

 

[n72.75]

What's going on? I can't see the stream.

 

[fausto]

The stream is now resumed!

---------- Post added at 12:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:39 AM ----------

We're 200,000 miles away from Earth, 70,000 miles from Moon, perfectly on path.
It's 49 hours mission elapsed time

http://www.livestream.com/orbiterlivemissions

---------- Post added 09-11-11 at 05:59 AM ---------- Previous post was 09-10-11 at 12:04 PM ----------

We are now in the Moon's sphere of gravity! Distance from Moon 30000 miles (50000 km). Next correction burn at 9:30 am UTC

---------- Post added at 12:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:59 AM ----------

25000 km (15000 miles) distance from Moon. Time to Lunar Orbit Inserction 5 hours 45 minutes.

We can see now some interesting lunar formations, like Copernicus and Thyco craters, and Mare Humorum. The visibility will grow up in the next 5 hours!

---------- Post added at 04:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:16 PM ----------

7000 km from Moon. The LOI is scheduled for 18:00 UTC

 

[n72.75]

Now in orbit around the Moon.

 

[fausto]

18 hours in Moon orbit, 9 orbits complete. Antares LR performs well!

http://www.livestream.com/orbiterlivemissions

---------- Post added at 06:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:53 AM ----------

At 19:00 UTC passes over beautiful moon craters and formations begin!

 

[Keatah]

How thrilling! Tuning in an out of this like a real space mission!

I'd like to see others try doing this. Whether it be a complete mission or major parts of other missions. Maybe you can post a list of software (in addition to orbiter) that you use to produce this?

And perhaps in the future we could have something planned (but not in the posted flightplan) like some sort of emergency or mission extension - like an extra 25 orbits or a diversion. Planned, but unknown to the audience.