A long day...

Viktor had me scheduled to go into work at 8 am, except that there was no transportation scheduled for that time. Fortunately, I ran into one of the ILS managers as I was looking at the schedule, and he told me there was nobody at the полтинник, as everyone had returned to the hotel after the rollout. Indeed, everyone was planning to go out to the pad at about 9:15 am, to watch the rocket go vertical.

This was my sixth rollout, and I've got to say, they still are an exciting sight:


After lunch, I reported to the полтинник and waited to go support a pad operation that was scheduled to start at 4 pm. However, for technical reasons, our departure was delayed until about 4:45, and when we got to the pad, we found out that the insulation had not yet been completely removed from the payload fairing. Initially, the estimate on how long that would take was an hour; after an hour, the revised estimate was "another 30 minutes."

We finally got going at a little after 7:30 pm, and the work went about as fast as it could. We wrapped up a little after 9:30 pm and by the time we got back to the hotel area, it was just after 10. Fortunately, the kitchen had held dinner for us. I informed Viktor that the job was complete, and he told me to take it easy tomorrow morning, which I fully intend to.

Time to go to sleep. I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open.

Cheers...