Campaign mid-term

We are roughly today on the middle of bridge.

Yesterday a test with ESOC called SVT-4 successfully took place. The purpose of this test was to check that telecommands sent by the ESA Control Centre are well executed by the satellite and the generated telemetry data received at ESOC are nominal. In other words it is one of the last check to verify that the space and the ground segments talk the same language.

To date, almost all functional, flight-like, performance, health checks... tests foreseen during the campaign on the Spacecraft and the Instrument have been performed.

Therefore a crowd of the support team is leaving Baikonur today to fly home namely to Noordwijk, Toulouse and Friedrichshafen. Their job close to the spacecraft has been completed and some of them will carry on the campaign soon at ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany.

To say good bye to them, a song contest-like was organised at the sputnik bar yesterday evening where certainly German, Welsh and Russian talents had the lead (not quoted by order order of ranking).


For those who stay, another type of exciting activities will start.
The aim will be now to progressively prepare the spacecraft to be integrated in the Space Head Module (SHM) as well the Launch operations. This will cover among other:
- (Still) some antenna tests
- Pressurization of the tank (to give the spacecraft enough "fuel"to perform its orbit and attitude control maneuvers once in space)
- Progressively remove the "red tag items" (those that are still on the spacecraft like protective caps on optical devices or electrical connectors...)
- Install the "green tag item" ones (those that have not yet been put on the spacecraft or that will be put at the last minute. For instance some pieces of thermal blankets that were not installed to give access to some working areas...)
- Careful spacecraft visual inspection
- Final charging of the battery (will be done on the launch day)
- Repeat the procedure from OFF to launch mode
- Rehearse the Count Down
-Perform Flight Readiness (FRR) related activites
-...

For those who stay, some are progressively showing remarkable adaptation to the Kazakh fashion!