alexpgp | 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...