Friday January 23rd 2009

The realisation is gradually sinking in to the team that this time it is for real. We have all be so used to having a schedule that has slipped constantly, not usually because of any real problems, but rather because it was overoptimistic as to just how much could be done in a certain time, that no one quite believed the dates that we were given for activities. Since last summer though, suddenly the schedule has stabilised and become much more reliable. We have gone through a heavy schedule of testing remarkably well. Now, we are just about finished with the last round of tests that industry has to apply to the spacecraft module. There are fewer and fewer things that can go wrong and stop a launch.

Attention centres on the simulations that will start on February 2^nd. For slightly over two weeks we will work intensely as if it were the real thing. This means 10 hours per day, 7 days a week. We then have a 2 week break and start another campaign. In between we must prepare a report on both this activity and the previous round of testing before Christmas and carry on with our normal work. Our Data Processors will be preparing a major new software release which will be the final one before the definitive launch software when we will have a packet of programmes that will allow astronomers around the world to plan, prepare and execute observations with Herschel and then, when made, to process and analyse them. Just to give an idea of the scale of the effort, the programme that we use to plan observations with Herschel is the result of about 25 man-years of work. The data reduction software is an even bigger effort. As software packages, they are so complex that it almost beggars belief.

Once again, I am coordinating the activities. What this means is to prepare the Test Plan (coordinating inputs from a lot of people), decide the activities that people will carry out, coordinate information to the team, write minutes of meetings, explain the plan and answer questions from people, organise briefings, etc. Later there will be a report to be written. In between, I coordinate with the Science Operations Manager – he is the person who will control Herschel when we launch – as he tries to get everything working at 100% and the team ready for launch.

Initially, to be honest, there was a bit of low key moaning about this campaign of simulations. People did not quite understand why they were expected to drop urgent tasks preparing for launch and disrupt their family lives to pretend to be operating the satellite when we will not be able to use it. Over the last week though, suddenly, the penny has dropped. Team Leaders have been trying to work out how to jiggle their teams so that they will have sufficient people at work every day, including weekends, can let people rest, allow for anyone who is off sick or needs special leave and can still cope with any problem. People are discovering that it is actually not at all easy to organise personnel for normal operations even for just two weeks. And, after launch, we will have to do this for a 5-month period. Suddenly everyone is realising that the exercise is actually very important: we need to discover now rather than later what problems we are going to have organising the team when we really will be observing and when every hour lost will be a catastrophe. And, of course, there is the knowledge that the boogie man (me) is hiding there in the background and, if I see that a team is understaffed or vulnerable, it is my job to decide that a problem has suddenly arisen that will test their ability to react. The Science Operations Manager and I have already decided what sort of problems are going to arise (everyone is going to get a really nasty surprise in the second simulations period, but that one is Top Secret), although we are going to play things by ear: the last thing that the team needs if there are real problems that need to be solved is for us to hit them with imaginary problems too. They need to feel confident that they can solve the problems that will inevitably appear when they are in space and confidence comes from familiarity and from knowing that they have already solved the problem in training.