Artemis 1 Launch

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Launch of NASA’s Artemis 1, first uncrewed flight of the full SLS stack to send Orion around the moon.

This launch gives me *feelings* because back when I worked with NASA OHCM, a big part of my job was editing internal video interviews with engineers and other staff working on, among other things, SLS and Orion. I got really familiar with 3D animated B-roll of SLS as it evolved to its current form, and over time I built myself up a little collection of SLS preview videos to watch how the plans for the rocket changed over the years.

Three views of the Space Launch System in various stages of its conceptual evolution, first with the plain painted first stage, then in shuttle orange with SRB racing stripes, then with the NASA worm logo and SRB motion tracking markings

Feels good to now cap off that playlist with a real-life SLS launch video — bit later than scheduled. I still remember walking along Playalinda Beach in 2014 and thinking “I should come back here when SLS is ready to launch in 2017.” That, uh, didn’t happen in 2017.

(Some of those video interviews I worked on, not all SLS-related, eventually made their way to the public as a recruitment series called “#NASAProud”. I had to re-edit those with public domain music — with help from FreePD — and make sure they were ITAR and Sec508 compliant.)

If you want to see more (and don’t mind hearing the NASA PAO announcer flub “ignition” repeatedly): Isolated Artemis 1 Launch Views from various cameras on the pad and around KSC.

Now onward to Artemis II, first crewed lunar flyby.