SpaceX Rocket Launching NASA's TESS Exoplanet Hunter Today: Watch Live

[ignhelper]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA's next exoplanet-hunting mission is scheduled to launch today (April 16) atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and you can watch the action live.The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here today at 6:32 p.m. EDT (2232 GMT). Watch the launch live at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV, beginning at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT). The weather looks good for the launch, with an 80-percent chance of clear skies at launch time, according to the Air Force's 45th Weather Squadron watching over the mission.
Shortly after liftoff, SpaceX will attempt to land the first stage of the two-stage Falcon 9 on a robotic ship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. To date, the company has pulled off such first-stage touchdowns 23 times during Falcon 9 launches, with about half of the boosters coming down on "drone ships" and the other half returning to terra firma. [NASA's TESS Exoplanet-Hunting Mission in Pictures] 

SpaceX has re-flown 11 of these landed boosters. But the Falcon 9 lifting off today is brand-new, Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX vice president of build and flight reliability, said during a pre-launch briefing yesterday (April 15).
SpaceX also aims to recover the payload fairing, the nose cone that will protect TESS during liftoff — but not using the net-equipped boat named Mr. Steven. The fairing halves will float back to Earth under parachutes and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean, where company personnel will retrieve them via boat, Hans Koenigsmann, SpaceX vice president of build and flight reliability, said during a pre-launch briefing yesterday (April 15). The company has made two attempts to catch its payload fairings without success, but hopes to recover fairings (which cost up to $6 million, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said) for later reuse.

SpaceX Rocket Launching NASA's TESS Exoplanet Hunter Today

Fuck yea science

[Morgen]

Here's the livestream:

https://youtu.be/aY-0uBIYYKk

Sorry I haven't had time to do a proper thread on it, super busy with work lately and stuck on mobile for awhile since I'm not home.

[nikomo]

NO GO
48 hour scrub

[Morgen]

Live now.

[Karmah]

Whoo, remembered that this was happening just a minute before launch

[CatFodder]

I'm going to be working with the data from this thing in a couple months, glad it hasn't blown up yet.

[Karmah]

Cool, the first stage didn't cut out for once

[gman003-main]

Goddamn, almost missed it. I made it just in time to watch the entry burn.

Nice to see the rocket's view of the landing - I think that's dropped or been cut every other time I've watched.