Tsiklon!

I tell you, rockets spring up like mushrooms around here. As I look out the window of the interpreter office here in the полтинник, I can see the sleek form of a Tsiklon launch vehicle that's standing probably less than a kilometer away.



(The Tsiklon is the item about a third of the way in from the right-hand side of the frame. The fencing along the bottom of the image is that of our building.)

The rocket is scheduled to lift off at around noon, and the folks working here were hoping to have a ringside seat for the launch. However, given the fact that the wind is blowing from the pad towards our building, the word I've heard is that everyone will be removed from here as a safety precaution and transported to an observation area, from where we can safely watch the launch.

Cheers...

(no subject)

The decision was made to evacuate the general area for this morning's Tsiklon launch, and this included not only the полтинник but also the residential quarter. We ended up at an observation site about 7-9 km away. There was a big concrete slab at the site that I did not get a good shot of, but it had a large, round plate on top that at one time had been connected to some hydraulic mechanisms that would swing the plate into the vertical position. I get the feeling it was a former missile silo, but what do I know?

The Tsiklon looked a lot smaller on the horizon from this location than from the полтинник, and shortly after noon, the rocket was launched:



We were so far away from the launch area that the noise of the launch - which sounded like the rumble of far-off thunder - reached us only after the rocket had gained significant height and executed its pitch maneuver. Here's another shot, taken perhaps 15-20 seconds after liftoff:



* * *In reading over the posts of the past few days, I can see where the casual reader might conclude that life is just one long holiday here in Kazakhstan. It's not. Between the interesting bits, there's been an increasing amount of work to be done. I note, for example, that there is no trip to town this weekend, according to the schedules I've seen. Joint ops are imminent.

Cheers...