Tuesday February 3^rd 2009. Launch -72 days.

First, a small correction to yesterday’s entry. The ship containing the Ariane 5 rocket that will launch Herschel arrived in port on Sunday and yesterday it was the first convoy containing pieces for final assembly that arrived at Kourou Spaceport yesterday. However, the biggest part – the cryogenic central section – has been delivered to the spaceport today. It is a fairly subtle distinction, but given that we have one or two real pedants in the team, let’s get the details absolutely right!

Has today been better than yesterday? Not really! In fact, to be brutally honest, very little actually went right last night. The automated systems started working when they should do but, then, a memory error derailed the process. We are frankly very disappointed, but not exactly stunned. A lot of changes have been made in the system since Christmas and not all of them have been as thoroughly tested as we would like so, in effect, this week is turning into a shakedown. Probably our expectations of the system were too great but, as eternal optimists, we thought that everything would work first time. There were various things that did not quite work right, some of which have been fixed quickly. One though, seems to be resisting. Our reformed banker went home some time after 7 this evening but, by 7:45 was back in his office as he was called straight back in to work. Of course, it is not a catastrophe if things don’t work perfectly tonight, provided that the problems are understood and can be hunted down quickly: after all, that is what tests are for. Tomorrow we will see what our engineers have to say in the briefing. If there are some smiles around the table at coffee first thing in the morning we will know that things have gone better.

At very least, these tests have been a big wake-up call. If people did not appreciate the scale of our task before, then they do now. However, really I think that people so understand the size of the task: we have been working hard for nearly 2 years since entering pre-launch operations and have made enormous progress. Really, we could operate the satellite with the system as it is now, but it would be a lot harder than it needs to be and people would end up in danger of burning out.

Mixed in with the bad news, was some good news as the day wore on. However, human nature being what it is, the bad news grabs our attention far more, as it should do at this stage. When all the wrinkles have been ironed-out of the system then we can tell each other how great things are. As it was, when asked for a summary at the end of the briefing today, I did not quite trust myself to be diplomatic, so I declined politely to comment.

As I left around 8pm, there were still an unusual number of people around. Certainly we are lucky that we have a good team who rally around when there is a problem. Leaving the building the cold and gloomy sky struck me, as did the evidence of recent rain. However, as I climbed the first, steep hill, it became obvious that it was not rain that was falling. Yes, the snow is back, although it was small flakes and only a light sprinkling, which was melting as it fell.