Tuesday March 17th 2009. Launch -?? days.
This has been an interesting and exciting day. There have been a series of high-level meetings with the Boss about our tests, policy to launch and further testing that is required. This week we were meant to make a series of changes in our system to test new hardware and software. Effectively we were to add the last elements that would convert our system into the final system for launch. Now, it seems that people are getting cold feet: “it’s a big risk to change things”. Hmmm. We either change them now or we change them closer to launch and that strikes me as a bigger risk.
We had a series of discussions about extra tests (we have been given an extra 13 days before launch – let’s use them) and what to do in them. One option was to delay all the changes to this final set of tests. However, with people already having worked a lot of weekends and extra hours (in my case I did 60 hours extra in the last test and will do even more this time) there is not much appetite for a long test involving weekend working (a lot of people would do it, but the ones with families are starting to get a little rebellious – “it’s one thing working weekends after we launch, it’s another to do it before”). In the end we have decanted for a one week test the week before launch when we will not have people in some centres on Easter holiday. What worried me was that after a week and a bit of quiet, successful operation, it is a bit of a risk, just before launch, to change a lot of things and then only have a few days to test them and fix any problems. What we do not want is to spend five days of hell just before launch fixing a series of silly bugs when the previous test has gone perfectly: that would give the impression that we have gone backwards. So, I argued that we should make whatever changes we can now so that there is a chance to detect the problems now [there are bound to be problems every time we change a fantastically complicated system, even when the changes are meant to be improvements] and have several weeks to fix them before the test. In the end, this point of view has prevailed and now my reward will be to write a test plan as fast as possible and to start organising the test.
What else? Well,
we are still working on this test. The little problem that we threw at people
yesterday was a sudden change in the ground station that we use to receive
(simulated) data in this test. The ground station has a problem and has had to
declare an emergency maintenance period. This means changing all the planning
of the observations because we plan 24 hours at a time and by changing from
This afternoon GOCE did, finally launch. The weather was pretty awful – it was snowing, so the visibility was poor – but the important thing is that the temperature was only just below zero so the doors of the launch structure could be opened hours before launch. At about 5 minutes before launch the building rolled back (huge sighs of relief), revealing the rocket. What we did not see and was not mentioned in the commentary, was that the rocket was inside a tube so, when the engines started to build up slowly, thick brown smoke wafted around the top of the rocket as the gases escaped out of the top of the launch tube. People started to get veeeeeeeery nervous at this point until, suddenly, flame burst all around and the rocket shot out at an amazing rate and climbed into the sky. It was impressive. Very impressive. The launch was successful and if you want to see it, here is the BBC’s very informative coverage of today’s launch:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7945170.stm
The second great news story of the day was the announcement, made by several people, that the ISS and the Space Shuttle Discovery would pass right overhead at 20:03. One group arranged a hasty star party at a team member’s home, hoping to get photos. I agreed to meet with our reformed banker near home. However, 45 minutes beforehand I was still in the office, fighting with a recalcitrant computer that refused to see my point of view. A dash out of the office, onto the bicycle and ride home as fast as some pretty tired legs could do it. Then I had to locate his telephone number. It turned out that he had just got home too and was in the shower. He asked for five minutes and I replied that in five minutes the ISS would have been and gone. Eventually he dashed down, literally running, and we headed off to a nearby site with a clear horizon just a couple of hundred metres away. As we got away from the houses I turned and said “it will come from there” and there it was, just below Orion. A few seconds later we saw the faint point that was the Space Shuttle Discovery and, at a fantastic rate, they climbed in the sky and passed overhead, brightening rapidly.
In 8x40
binoculars it was obvious that the ISS was not just a point of light. We each
watched it cross overhead in binoculars and then sink in the north-west, fading
as it got further away and then entered the Earth’s shadow. It was all over in
a few minutes, but what a show! We were both really excited walking back home.
I would swear that you could see the gap between Discovery and the Space
Station reducing as it climbed in the sky, but that was debatable. What was
clear though is that it was a wonderful experience to see the Shuttle just
shortly before docking. Once, about two years ago I saw the Space Shuttle
following the ISS in the sky a few hours after docking; amazingly though, those
have been the only two occasions that I have ever seen the ISS.