Well, so far so good... just watched it "live" streaming on YouTube from SpaceX's channel and synced with the delayed video of the same feed from NASA TV (they're always late LOL:)
Beautiful launch, good staging, first stage reentry and landing on the drone ship, second stage shutdown they said was scheduled for +08:59 mission elapsed time (MET) but actually occurred at +09:05 as I was watching it. Don't know what that was about. Dragon 2 separated shortly thereafter and should dock around 6 am...
SpaceX will be broadcasting live from their YouTube channel, and I guess NASA TV will cover it as well. Launch replays on right now. That Falcon 9 is something... modernized Saturn IB, more or less...
Here's hoping things continue to go well... "My finely wrought dream approaches its fulfillment!"... LOL:) Gotta throw in a great Hugo Drax comment there, don't ya know.
That blue burning kerosene ring shortly before staging was GORGEOUS! Never seen that before, but the launches in daytime I guess the bright light obscures it. Kerosene and LH2, THAT is the proper way to power a space launcher (yeah, I know, it's a kerosene upper stage engine-- shame they don't have a hydrogen upper stage, in a way, because it would give a HUGE performance boost to Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy... but of course it'd be a lot more expensive and create more difficulties, so there's something to be said for the simplicity of kerosene upper stages... The Russians have used them from day 1 and still do! Kerosene, baby! None of that silly solid rocket nonsense!
Anyway, they're on their way, and all I gotta say is, it's about time! I'd bet SpaceX could have had it done a couple years ago, but they've gotta make "granny NASA" happy and prove everything 9 ways to Sunday. I had to laugh during the pre-launch press conference, when they were talking about having to satisfy the Russians about the approach and docking sequence to "protect the station". They didn't seem to have a problem with cobbling together a TV/remote control docking system for their Progress freighters during the Shuttle/Mir program, when they were having trouble getting the Kurs automated docking system parts from Ukraine after the Soviet collapse (because Roscosmos hadn't been paying their bills to the company producing them in Ukraine) and so they cobbled together a "replacement"... of course it was glitchy and the video feed would drop out, and they were then trying to fly the Progress in and dock "blind". Had one guy watching the TV screen with a hand controller, the other guy at the hatch porthole trying to find the Progress and hit it with a laser rangefinder to determine the distance and closing rate... and the two guys shouting instructions/readouts to each other... crazy. One near miss when they lost sight of the Progress and the TV/control had completely glitched out, with the Progress whizzing by a few meters from the Mir wasn't enough-- No, they try it again on a little while later on another launch and have the same nonsense happen, only this time the Progress smashed into one of Mir's modules and holed it, and they were in full panic mode to sever all the wire bundles and hoses going into the module through the open hatch so they could close the hatch before the station completely depressurized! Yet of course NOW *we* have to satisfy those crazy Russians that our spacecraft is "safe" to approach "their" station... LOL:) Ain't international cooperation grand?? LOL:)
Anyway, yall have a good one! Later! OL J R

My MUNIFICENCE is BOUNDLESS, Mr. Bond...