Mission Control radio: Space Shuttle Endeavour with ambient electronica soundtrack

Rusty from SomaFM writes,

"The Space Shuttle Endeavour has taken off and is in space, traveling to the International Space Station where it will be delivering parts including the third connecting module known as 'the Tranquility node' to the station. It's also bringing up a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. The mission will feature three spacewalks."

"You can hear it all mixed with electronic ambient music on SomaFM's Mission Control channel. Just go to somafm.com and click on Mission Control.

"The best time to tune in is around 2pm pacific time (06:00 GMT), when the astronauts are just getting up and starting their checklists for the day. Astronaut sleep periods are approximately from 6am pacific to 2pm pacific. There will be minimal mission audio at that time, but the rest of the time all sorts of stuff is going on."

[CC-licensed image, via Flickr: "STS-130 Shuttle Launch," photographed on Feb 8, 2010 by Malenkov in Exile]

• [Anonymous]

  Just on the off-chance that any other Australian would-be listeners use Internode as their ISP, this channel (along with a couple of others) is offered as unmetered content. Direct playlist link is http://media.on.net/radio/129.m3u and the full list of unmetered radio channels is here http://www.internode.on.net/radio .

• [Anonymous]

  I used to love listening to mission control feeds when Julie Payette, the Canadian astronaut, was CapCom. Beautiful French-Canadian accented tech talk. Add some music to that, and I’d buy it.

• [Anonymous]

  2 pm Pacific time is not 6:00 GMT.

  10 pm Pacific is 6:00 GMT.

  2 pm Pacific is 22:00 GMT (10:00 pm GMT).

• [dalesd]

  This needs an IRC channel (or something like that) to go along with it.

• [MacLuddite]

  This is wonderful.

• [Marchhare]

  They had the Apollo 11 chatter set to ambient music last summer during the anniversary of the Moon landing. It was super-cool.

• [Cormac]

  Yay SomaFM, I listen to the Mission Control channel pretty frequently, the back and forth chatter over very chill ambient is fun background sound.

• [bassplayinben]

  I still follow the shuttle religiously and I’m disappointed to see someone say that the best time to watch the mission coverage is when the people aren’t talking to each other. Entertainment has surely become our primary concern.

  • [Anonymous]

    As I read it,

    “The best time to tune in is around 2pm pacific time (06:00 GMT), when the astronauts are just getting up and starting their checklists for the day.”

    AND

    “Astronaut sleep periods are approximately from 6am pacific to 2pm pacific. There will be minimal mission audio at that time, but the rest of the time all sorts of stuff is going on.”

    convey the meaning of

    “The best time to tune in is when the astronauts are not sleeping”

    no?

  • [Cormac]

    Nobody said the best time was when nobody is talking to each other. The text above called out that “The best time to tune in is around 2pm pacific time (06:00 GMT), when the astronauts are just getting up and starting their checklists for the day”, i.e. when they are engaged in lots of back and forth chatter with the ground.

• [Anonymous]

  I’ve been a huge soma.fm fan for many years and the Mission Control channel was a really neat addition. I wear my t-shirt proudly.

• [dalesd]

  If you would like to see the ISS+Endeavour when it passes over your location, check out http://www.heavens-above.com for dates and times. You can see it with the naked eye. No telescope necessary; it’s often one of the brightest objects in the sky.

• [IWood]

  You might dig Lemon Jelly’s “Spacewalk.”

  • [Anonymous]

    I love that song and think the line “BEAUTIFUL” is from Charlie who I hear on here all the time.