by Chris Tobias
If you’ve watched SpaceX’s recent launches online, you’ve no doubt read some of the comments on social media by those who are annoyed that SpaceX ends their live online broadcasts before the completion of the mission.
It has been pretty standard procedure for SpaceX to sign off before the deployment of the payloads during their satellite launches, and while we admit that can sometimes be irksome, we think they should also get credit where credit is due for providing us with some pretty shiny Vine videos, like the recent one that showed the “interesting” first attempt at a landing of the Falcon 9 first stage booster rocket on the drone barge in the Atlantic Ocean.
The newest post-launch Vine was released by the company this week, showing the deployment of the EUTELSAT 115 West B, the second of two satellites that were carried into the black by the Falcon 9 this past Sunday.
For now, we think videos like these, coupled with what has now become a trademark of SpaceX’s live launch coverage– the in-engine camera that shows a really shiny shot of the Falcon 9’s liquid propellant as it goes weightless– are more than enough to make up for the broadcasts that go LOS on us before the mission is complete. Besides, we’re pretty sure that when SpaceX launches their first manned Dragon V2 into the black, they’ll make sure we see every minute of that historic flight!
And of course, we hope that ship that we’re all tuning in to see will be a ship named Serenity. If you share that hope, there’s no better time than now to write a letter or two to SpaceX to let them know. And while you’re at it, be sure to sign our online petition calling for a Dragon V2 named after our favorite Firefly-class transport ship, then tell as many like-minded folk as you can to do the same.
Until next time– peace, love and rockets…
Take Back the Sky 