Campaign status 5/4/2010

Launch -3 days
Last Friday the following activities on the spacecraft were successfully completed:

• Full Battery charging (33,8V)
• Full check of sides A and B

Today:
Preparation at MIK for Dress Rehearsal: Count Down Manual procedure last checks, Room set up and connections check up...

In parallel the packing continues.

Next milestones before launch:

• Dress Rehearsal 6/4/2010 (see Preparing for the Dress Rehearsal and MIK gets prepared)
  
• Final checks: 7/4/2010: Spacecraft Power on, Battery re-charging if necessary, side B again?. No venting foreseen, +...
  
• Russian State Commission "green light" 7/4/2010

...
This short message leaves room to report some parallel news about life at the MIK site 31.
As it has been already said for the city, MIK also prepares for the seasonal transition and the few pieces of land around the buildings have been nicely "groomed".

Noteworthy to mention: today there is no water at the MIK. Russians switched from winter to summer the water distribution system on Site 31 (including our building 40). This activity will necessitate some seasonal maintenance that will cut off the water distribution for roughly 24 hours. No real impact on us as long as we rely on bottled water, and sufficient hygiene water has been foreseen for this period.

We were also informed that a safety drill will take place today at 14:00 meaning that all people in buildings on site 31 have to leave and gather at the meeting point. By the way we never noticed the alarm in the offices... but we were compliant with the evacuation request. Fortunately this activity, we were just informed about today, was not planned for tomorrow, in such a case this would have seriously interfered with our dress rehearsal!

Last but not least, our MIK "friends" have grown up a bit since last January and are doing well as they have evidently found enough food in the vicinity to pass the winter... They are still very timid and it is very difficult to approach them.