Here's my master collection of space links. You wouldn't believe how often I refer back to this page.
NASA TV and TV schedules
NASA TV direct links for online viewing: Windows Media / Real Media / Quicktime
NASA TV breaking news schedule and the TV schedule during shuttle missions
NASA TV Media Channel -- caters towards the media, so it contains more video "packages" and less fluffy historical programs. During missions it's the same as the public channel. Rarely it'll have exclusive live coverage of something because there's two things happening at the same time. (Windows Media only, NASA drank the Microsoft Kool Aid)
Alternative feeds of NASA TV if NASA/Yahoo goes down.
Here's NASA's collection of HD videos for download. An HD version of NASA TV's live 24-7 channel is occasionally active but it's not available on cable or satellite, only to media organizations.
Countdown clocks
Flight Data Files (e.g. checklists for ascent, entry, EVAs, etc.)
NASA's online countdown clock (Java) and another, better clock for ELV rockets
NASA's countdown clock in simple flash form
All of these clocks from NASA automatically transition to mission elapsed time (MET) after launch. A guy in the Czech Republic also runs this cool 9-pane configurable status page that is great for monitoring several sources at once during critical periods, like a launch attempt.
Space Shuttle reference:
- typical launch sequence
- shuttle MCC layout
- press materials including ground tracks
- all possible ground tracks
- entry altitude profile
International Space Station links:
- ISS assembly sequence,
- ISS truss overview,
- ISS daily status reports from NASA,
- the Russian tracking page, useful for seeing Progress status,
- ISS-to-ground audio loop (the best times to listen are 2am - 5pm EDT)
- ISS webcam
- ISS timelines
Trackers / Overflight Visibility:
- Heavens Above , enter your location and be amazed
- Sat Tracker using Google Maps
- Another tracking page, this one using Google Maps and showing live position and visibility stats
- shuttle sighting Java app (incl during atmospheric glide)
This space.com article from 2006 had a nice graphic showing the visibility of each launch all the way up the east coast of the US. But it's really only visible for nighttime or dusk launches. If you're in the NY/NJ area, you'll need to look towards the south/southeast starting around 6 minutes after launch.
Status and discussion
SpaceFlightNow is good for getting basic news and status; they have the best launch calendar on the web. They have a premium service that I used to subscribe to for downloable video packages, but they pissed me off with their retarded billing so I stopped renewing. John44's Netherlands site (link below) satisfies the video requirement.
NASAspaceflight.com's front page and discussion forums are for serious fans; for each shuttle mission, the respective Discovery / Atlantis / Endeavor forum will be of most interest and will include daily threads with minute by minute updates of the mission. Truly hardcore fans pay for NSF's Level2 premium service, which apparently offers an insane amount of information. I don't subscribe to L2 for the same reason I don't have cable TV: I would never stop looking at it.
The NSF forums led me to an incredible resource for catching NASA TV events after the fact: www.space-multimedia.nl.eu.org is a site in the Netherlands apparently run by one guy (John44 on the NSF forums). He captures the NASA TV events and makes them available for download. For free!
Bill Harwood is a reporter at CBS who has been covering the space program for years, and whose website provides a tres aure trove of rapid-access information, including launch windows, mission timelines, historical events (e.g. launch abort history) and even some killer Excel spreadsheets that further collate all this data.
CollectSpace and Unmanned Spaceflight are two excellent sites that serve respective niche audiences. Actually, UMSF isn't really a niche audience, as it covers all of the unmanned probes currently (or soon to be) zipping around the solar system, including Cassini, New Horizons, Messenger and the fleet of Mars probes.
Watching a launch at Kennedy Space Center
Photographer Ben Cooper has a great writeup about what your viewing options are, both paid and free.
If you're making the trip, consider staying at the Surf Studio in Cocoa Beach. It's a nice little beach front motel, owned and operated by the Greenwald family since 1948. It's down at the south end of Cocoa Beach, thus a little bit further from Kennedy, but it's only a 5 minute extra drive and gets you down to a more quiet stretch of beach.
WMMB is a local AM station (AM 1240 and AM 1350) that has launch coverage starting at about 3 hours before launch, and supposedly does not talk over the NASA commentary once the countdown gets close and then during the 8 minute launch phase.
SCANNER INFO
If you have a radio scanner (i.e. for police radio), here are some frequencies of interest:
NASA TV audio on 146.94 MHz (from ~3 hours before liftoff to landing)
NASA (TV?) audio on 442.6 MHz
Both (?) operated by local ham club http://www.lisats.org
http://www.milaircomms.com/uhf_ksc.html
Some highlights:
121.750 KSC NASA Ground
126.650 KSC Weather / STA
128.550 KSC NASA Tower
Here are the really good frequencies, but you need a scanner that can pick up the military bands:
296.800 MHz - Air-to-ground, or orbiter-to-suit
259.700 MHz - Air-to-ground, or suit-to-orbiter
279.000 MHz - Suit-to-orbiter, or suit-to-suit
243.000 MHz - Standard military aircraft emergency frequency
http://home.cfl.rr.com/scanner/launch.htm
Ham radio repeaters all over the country that "carry shuttle audio during missions":
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sarex/shutfreq.html
(probably outdated)
http://shuttleaudio.info/
(somewhat more up to date)
