Day 1 recap...

Of course the highlight of the day was the rollout of the complete "space rocket" (Proton-M launch vehicle, Breeze-M upper stage, payload adapter, fairing, and satellite) to the pad. The operation was slated to start at 6:30 am, and since I'd been the interpreter for this activity last year, I elected to skip what amounted to the reverse of the rollout from Hall 111 to the Breeze-M fueling facility (naturally, on this trip, Hall 111 would be bypassed and the stack would be taken -- at a walking pace -- to the pad facility).

There was something of a feverish attitude toward getting the backup umbilical rack moved yesterday morning, and it turned out the energy was in large part driven by a desire not to miss the operation during which the transporter railcar (to which the launch vehicle is attached) is hoisted into the vertical position on the pad. This operation is termed the "erection" operation, which makes perfect sense linguistically, but almost never fails to elicit a nudge-nudge-wink-wink from that juvenile part of the brain that remains alive as long as one continues to breathe.

In any event, between everyone milling around while the rack was being transferred from the forklift to a truck, running around looking for ELSAs (required for pad visits), and following a truck whose driver had been instructed in no uncertain terms to drive slowly (so as not to damage the instruments mounted in the rack), our van was still quite some distance away from the pad when the erection operation commenced. By the time we got to the pad, it was over.

Our work took us away from where the team had been assembled for a photo opportunity. Eventually, though, I managed to find my way over to where everyone was feeling in somewhat of a celebratory mood (the French had broken out the wine and some tins of paté) and was photographed standing in front of the now-vertical vehicle.



One curious aspect of our work place was the roundabout route one had to take to get there: down several flights of stairs, then horizontally through a tunnel, then a left turn after a pair of heavy blast doors and back up two flights of stairs. Signs reading "Main direction of evacuate of the personal" [sic] with arrows pointing back along our path were posted every few feet. If I were not familiar with the route, I wonder how willing I would be -- in case of an emergency requiring me to escape now -- to actually go down flights of stairs, further away from the surface?

Cheers...

If this was a horse race...

... we'd be coming out of the far turn. Today was Day 2 of pad activities.

Today's morning meeting was the last one for this campaign. Out of approximately 30 or so such meetings that have taken place since my arrival, I've supported only three, which is somewhat fewer than one would expect if the work were allocated on an "even" basis.

Of course, there can never be such a thing, and one must make allowances. As it turns out, I think the lead interpreter, Sergey Z., has really tried hard to be fair as far as the number of assignments (and hence, the hourly load) are concerned, although as a result, there were times I felt I had been relegated to support fairly mundane, albeit necessary tasks.

Tomorrow is Day 3, which is dedicated to rehearsing various scenarios, including launch and launch abort. If all goes well, then Day 4, which is the backup day to take care of any problems that might crop up during the first three days, will be fairly light duty (and will offer an excellent opportunity to bank some sleep, since I don't think anyone is going to get much sleep overnight going from Day 4 to Day 5, which is Launch Day).

Launch is schedule for sometime between 4:30 am and 5 am on Wednesday. The work of the campaign won't finish until the upper stage delivers the satellite to a preplanned point somewhere very close to a geosynchronous orbit.

For some reason, I'm finding it hard to wind down. I may as well just lie down and wait for sleep to come.

Cheers...