It’s Friday, with about 2 hours left in the West Coast work day. Are you working? Like actually working? Probably not.
So let’s watch freaking rockets get shot into space instead!
After a bunch of delays, SpaceX is scheduled to launch six satellites into the skies for ORBCOMM, a company that helps companies use satellites for everything from asset monitoring to wireless communication.
And since we live in such wonderful times, you get to watch things get shot into space from your couch. Live! You don’t even have to wear pants! Incredible.
Here’s the stream, which, annoyingly, I can’t embed. Launch has been pushed back about an hour, with takeoff currently set for just after 4:00 PM Pacific. They’re having some last second technical difficulties, so there’s a non-trivial chance today’s mission will get scrapped — but they’re currently convinced they’ll get things patched up in time.
Update: Mission aborted! They had pressure issues they couldn’t resolve in time for launch.
(Interesting side note: This isn’t the first time ORBCOMM has launched with SpaceX — at the end of 2012, the launch of one of their prototype satellites ended up in a bad orbit when one of the nine engines on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket failed. The end result? After about 50 hours of floating around in (the wrong part of) space, it all spiraled back down to earth. All in all, the lost cost ORBCOMM [or at least their insurance plan] around $10 million bucks.)