Demo day(s)!

In case you have missed (too bad 'cause there was some magnificient shots in there!) the second day of demo of the ATV's rendezvousing with the ISS, you can head for Space-Multimedia (once again a space geek life-saver!) where the complete coverage, recorded of NASA TV, is available. If everything goes as planned, the ATV should dock to the station this coming Thursday ... another exciting space event to watch :-) Also, the ATV blog folks have made available a video showing some of yesterday events, built from the telemetry received during the mission. It's worth a look, albeit a bit boring I must said ...

On the Orbiter's addon front, I'm sort of back on the drawing block at this time. About a week ago, we decided to once again downgrade our first addon, in order to reduce the scope of it and make our lives a bit easier and release something sooner. This doesn't mean that we are moving aways from our high realism/details goals. Quit the contrary actually, since we are only reducing the addon scope. I know this must sounds a bit cryptic, but things should start to get clearer as we get moving along.

Was it worth it?

Right after I closed Windows Media Player Saturday night, following over two hours of streaming, my wife asked me if it watching that launch had been worth missing a party ... I hesitated a moment, then replied that yes it have been worth it. Sure, those darn clounds had not allowed us to follow Ariane 5 in it's climb to orbit for more than a couple of second following launch (27s to be precise), but even with that, the coverage was interesting and overall it was exciting to watch it the launch of the first ATV. Also an Ariane 5 launch is a rather impressive event ... the SRB ignition is, I found, alway mighy impressive ... the shock wave from it is enough to knock the camera. Here's a YouTube video of the (most exciting part) of the launch, in case you missed it:

One thing I do miss, it's on-board cameras. I think I ahve talked about this in a previous blog, but I can help to wish they had some. A view of the ATV floating away from Ariane upper stage will have been pretty darn sweet ...

ATV fever

With only a couple of days to go before the launch of the first European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) on top of an Ariane 5 rocket, the excitement in the Space geek community is starting to build-up, with the help of various interesting documents which were recently released, such as a Launch Kit (PDF, 6Mb) from EADS. As usual for an Ariane launch, Arianespace will be broadcasting the launch, but this time NASA TV will also cover the launch, live! We were suppose to visit some friends Saturday evening, but since the launch was postponned by 24h and is now happening that particular night, I had no choice by to cancel (the invitation, not the launch). Since they know that I'm a big Space geek, I think they understand ... However, my wife isn't too happy about staying home to watch another boring (night) launch on a tiny Window on my computer screen ...

To mark the event, ESA have started a few days ago a blog, to follow live the first mission of the ATV.