Sunday March 1st 2009. Launch -46 days.

 

There is still an eerie calm at weekends. It can’t and won’t last much longer. After months of having my mailbox buzzing on a Saturday and Sunday it feels odd to miss checking my mail for several hours and have precisely nothing about Herschel at the end of it. Three months ago, or even a month ago, the volume of email on a weekend was almost as great as during the week. Now, industry is winding-down its efforts after a long period where it ramped-up to a six-day and then to a seven-day week. One can well imagine that the people who have been putting in such exhausting hours are highly relieved just to have got their part of the job done and relax a bit. In contrast, the heat and pressure is on the launch team to meet that April 16th date at 13:16UT, although the very calm noises and lack of any significant news coming out of Kourou indicates that there is no reason to doubt that they will be ready and have some time in hand.

 

Outside my window the interesting activity is in the former car park. Having spent over a year in portacabins initially when I arrived before the new building was ready, a new set of portacabins is now being constructed. The site is growing apace and already there is a critical lack of office space again.