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Departure eve...
Nov. 9th, 2006 10:07 pmI've never seen people get ready to depart so quickly.
Up to a few days ago, we were scheduled to leave on Saturday, the 11th, but a day or two ago, this mindset began to take hold - or maybe it was just an instruction from the new owner of ILS - wherein planning went forth for alll of us to leave on the 10th, tomorrow.
At 11:45 am, in front of the Fili, no less.
The launch went like clockwork. After four burns of the upper stage, the satellite was delivered into its parking orbit a whole 290 milliseconds from the scheduled time, after a flight of the order of several hours. The French crew invaded the communications center with about a case of champagne, which was consumed with great rejoicing (the previous satellite launched for this customer suffered an early anomaly in the upper stage timeline).
Today was mostly a recuperation day. I slept from about 8 am to 11:30 am. The afternoon was spent at the полтинник, taking care of after-action items, and then at 4:30 pm, everyone was evacuated from the hotel area to the полтинник so that the Strategic Forces could conduct an exercise with a silo-based ICBM that was approaching the end of its service lifetime, and located within 1500 meters of the Fili!
I searched Google Earth to see if I could find the site, without success (which merely testifies to my inexperience with Google Earth). In any event, we all went outside near the appointed time to see what we could see, and I can now state that I have seen an ICBM launch. Forget payloads, or satellites intended for any kind of research. We're talking the end of life as we know it.
Granted, the launch was targeted for a remote area of the Kamchatka peninsula, but it was still somewhat disquieting to watch the rocket take off and disappear into the clouds. It seemed so... small. If the end of life as we know it had come to pass during the era of Mutual Assured Destruction, where both sides launched volleys of such rockets at each other, then what I saw today would have happened hundreds of times on both sides of the Curtain, and this journal would not exist.
Enough with the gloom and doom...
The celebratory dinner was marked with a marked lack of commentary from the bigwigs. Hooray! At a separate table with some folks from ILS, I expressed toasts hoping I'd get to do this again with this exceptional bunch of people, and another to the effect that I hoped that others would, too. I tore myself away early, so to speak, so that I could get a good night's sleep before packing my stuff for the trip to Moscow. A few seconds ago, a bus stopped by the Fili for the long trip into town, to the Luna Club (so named, apparently, because only lunatics go there on the night before returning home, nie?).
But the pillow calls. I need to get up early enough to pack my stuff. It will be cold tomorrow in Moscow.
Cheers...
Up to a few days ago, we were scheduled to leave on Saturday, the 11th, but a day or two ago, this mindset began to take hold - or maybe it was just an instruction from the new owner of ILS - wherein planning went forth for alll of us to leave on the 10th, tomorrow.
At 11:45 am, in front of the Fili, no less.
The launch went like clockwork. After four burns of the upper stage, the satellite was delivered into its parking orbit a whole 290 milliseconds from the scheduled time, after a flight of the order of several hours. The French crew invaded the communications center with about a case of champagne, which was consumed with great rejoicing (the previous satellite launched for this customer suffered an early anomaly in the upper stage timeline).
Today was mostly a recuperation day. I slept from about 8 am to 11:30 am. The afternoon was spent at the полтинник, taking care of after-action items, and then at 4:30 pm, everyone was evacuated from the hotel area to the полтинник so that the Strategic Forces could conduct an exercise with a silo-based ICBM that was approaching the end of its service lifetime, and located within 1500 meters of the Fili!
I searched Google Earth to see if I could find the site, without success (which merely testifies to my inexperience with Google Earth). In any event, we all went outside near the appointed time to see what we could see, and I can now state that I have seen an ICBM launch. Forget payloads, or satellites intended for any kind of research. We're talking the end of life as we know it.
Granted, the launch was targeted for a remote area of the Kamchatka peninsula, but it was still somewhat disquieting to watch the rocket take off and disappear into the clouds. It seemed so... small. If the end of life as we know it had come to pass during the era of Mutual Assured Destruction, where both sides launched volleys of such rockets at each other, then what I saw today would have happened hundreds of times on both sides of the Curtain, and this journal would not exist.
Enough with the gloom and doom...
The celebratory dinner was marked with a marked lack of commentary from the bigwigs. Hooray! At a separate table with some folks from ILS, I expressed toasts hoping I'd get to do this again with this exceptional bunch of people, and another to the effect that I hoped that others would, too. I tore myself away early, so to speak, so that I could get a good night's sleep before packing my stuff for the trip to Moscow. A few seconds ago, a bus stopped by the Fili for the long trip into town, to the Luna Club (so named, apparently, because only lunatics go there on the night before returning home, nie?).
But the pillow calls. I need to get up early enough to pack my stuff. It will be cold tomorrow in Moscow.
Cheers...
