Orion Test Flight (EFT-1)

On Friday morning, NASA and ULA launched the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle on its inaugural test flight atop a Delta IV Heavy from Cape Canaveral. Orion would go on to a 3600 mile apogee before re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down off the West coast.

The mission was delayed from the day before, when winds and a valve issue pushed the launch outside of it's launch window.

1. The view from Static Test Road about ten minutes before launch

Holy amazeballs these are fantastic. I am assuming you were on some sort of press assignment to capture this kind of imagery with the remote cameras etc?

I was so bummed on the first scrubbed launch that I couldn't make it down for the 2nd (and successful) attempt when I was in Florida.

Great shots! You really captured the feel of the launch. Can you tell us about the remotes?

looks like a big bertha... well done!

Fantastic shots and great angles.

wow! superb shots and great locations!

These are excellent exposures & images! How many cameras did you have set up for them?

Great shots Mike!

Tell us more about the remote cameras. How many were sacrificed to the gods of great photography?

They all survived. Mine did, anyway.

Here's what the remotes looked like:

1D2 + 40 STM

NICE work & appreciate your description of what it takes to do it.

Wowzers! Very cool photos, makes you feel like you're right there!!!

Thanks for sharing the behind the scenes setups!

Stunning as usual. Clearly you have got to have the most awesome job on the planet, well, at least in the top 10.

Thanks for the camera set-up images! I see that you have a Tiltall. I'm still loving mine. ; )

Tremendous!

Can you provide an approximate distance from the launch pad the one that got knocked over was?