Launch day

For official information related to the CryoSat-2 launch please refer to ESA or CryoSat-2 web sites.

For the main milestones of the Count Down till lift off, please refer to the Campaign status on 6/4/2010.

For the main events after lift off please refer to Dniepr mission profile.

Watch the broadcasting of CryoSat-2 launch live.
Lift off @ 19:57 Baikonur (15:57 CEST)

Updates from launch team in Baikonur to be released later on today on this page.
All time below are Baikonur time (CEST= Baikonur time -4 hours).

• 7h45 am local weather conditions: +8C, very slight breeze, sunny, no clouds
• 9:41 am Preparing boarding the bus to the cosmodrome (Stephane ESA Photographer)
  

• 10:38 am Passing (on the left) road to launch pad 109 (view from bus)

• 10:54 am Daily debriefing
  

• 11:20 am Observing launch pad 109 from second floor of building 40, site 31 (at the silo, crane on truck available to remove "silo cover")

• 11:57 am Count Down Procedure (CDM) started. Launch -8:00h. Team picture.

• 13:34 Installing CS-2 mascot : Polar bears in Baikonur, Penguins at ESOC (step not foreseen in the CDM procedure:-)
  

• 14:01 CryoSat-2 powered on
• 15:07 Local weather conditions: +21C, very slight breeze, hazy (launch pad 109 under left the lamp post, shot taken from building 40 second floor)

• 17:30 Silo cover removed (artist view of the launch pad as it should look like now)
  

• 17:54 Local weather conditions: +20,9C, slight breeze, good visibility to launch pad, becomes cloudy
• 19:15 Local weather conditions: +17,5C, slight breeze, hazy but good visibility to launch pad
  

After a perfect lift off, separation and the acquisition of the first telemetry data at ESOC:

• 20:25 CryoSat-2 launch is declared Successful !!! a lot of emotion here at the MIK .

Just a sip of champagne (not Kazakh but French this time) before a celebration with our Russian colleagues at the Hotel Cosmonaut

Certainly life memories for the "Dream Team" after this fascinating adventure ...

and, en passant hello from MIK to all our friends from ESTEC, ESOC, ASTRIUM, THALES, ALENIA SPACE, CNES...sitting at the moment at ESOC.

...to be continued

Campaign status 7/4/2010

Launch -1 Day
The following activities are planned today:

• Battery top up - completed
  
• Off to Launch Mode (check of side A) - completed
  
• Update of EGSE parameters - completed
  
• Cleaning up points noted at the Dress Rehearsal 06/04 - completed
  
• Russian State Commission Meeting (19:00) - green light given at 19:30

In parallel, packing continued during the day...

Later on today...

• Ironing uniform for the D day...

Russian State Commission meeting at Cosmonaut Hotel

Just after the meeting
Edi, Bill, Alexander, Klaus.
From left to right

Campaign status 6/4 /2010

Launch - 2 Days
Sequence of important events today @ Baikonur time (-4h for CEST):

• 10:47 Arrival of CS-2 team at MIK site 31, Baikonur
  

• 11:07 launch pad 119 observation with binocular from MIK second floor: it was possible to see clearly a man dressed with a long white clothing. This type of gear is not the usual staff worn by the "Silo operators". Our best guess is that it is the Priest blessing the Rocket (slightly earlier than expected).
  

Dress rehearsal took place:

• 11:57 Count down started (8 hours before Launch)
  

• 12:12 Contact established with ESOC* (voice and time checks)
• 13:55 Spacecraft (SC) Switch-on

• 16:12 SC set in Pre-Launch mode completed
• 17:50 MIK dumps and clears on-board System log
• 18:00 Team swap at ESOC, Team A at console
• 18:40 1st Launcher time synchronization
  

• 19:07 Command from LCC** to switch to internal power
• 19:07 MIK confirms to ESOC "GO for launch"
• 19:17 MIK states "CryoSat-2 Go for launch" (launch-40 mn)
• 19:20 2nd launcher lime synchronization
  
• 19:20 SC in Launch Mode
• 19:42 Start of Launcher sequence ( launch -15mn)
• 19:49 Readiness of Ground stations for first acquisition
• 19:52 Last possibility for an abort launch by ESA (Launch -5mn)
• 19h54 "Start" button pressed at LCC (Launch -3mn)
• 19:56 Launch Readiness 1 minute from LCC
• 19:57 Aborted launch today because it is a simulation!
  

The CS-2 launch animation was played at "T=+5 seconds or Engine ignition/ lift off) and the Count Down Manual procedure was continued at ESOC till separation.
The dress rehearsal went very smoothly (few minor things will be addressed at the debriefing and fixed by the 8/4). This gives confidence on the readiness of all parties involved in the launch.

*ESOC European Space Control Center
**LCC: Launch Control Center

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.

CryoSat-2 at the Silo

Launch-7 days
Activities planned for today have been successfully completed.
Again, not much more that was already said in Day-10:CS-2 travels to the Silo can be added.

The transport from MIK site 31 to Launch pad 109 was safely performed in 1 hour 15 minutes to run the 13.5 kilometers distance.
The convoy here is approaching the launch pad 109 (on the right).

Credits: Klaus

In parallel of this transport, the ESA/ASTRIUM team had to get the Electrical Ground Support Equipment (EGSE) and the NDIU (needed for the communication with the ESOC, the ESA control center in Darmstadt) down to the bunker. The few pictures below may show how inconvenient and risky this task is:
Approaching the Bunker entrance form the outside

Difficulty to pass through the bunker narrow door entrance

Descending the stair case (30 meters long) with 100kgs racks!

A pause between to levels

Finally all equipment successfully installed and connected!

The Spacecraft was successfully mated on the DNIEPR rocket as some Battery telemetry could already been read after the EGSE have been connected.
Next steps

• Spacecraft will be powered on 02/04.
• Battery charging and usual telemetry measurements
• Dress rehearsal 6/04

CS-2 ready for the Silo

Launch -8 days
CryoSat-2 has has now been in loaded on to the Crocodile as it was already done on February 12th. This activity was widely described in "the crocodile closes its jaws"
The similar operation today went smoothly.

This was the last picture shot today before ESA & ASTRIUM were not allowed to continue witnessing activities.

Next steps on 01/04 (hopefully not a joke) :

• transport of the Spacecraft to the Silo
• transport of EGSE+NDIU to the bunker

Things are moving again

Launch - 9 days.
Good news!: last electrical tests of the modified unit on the launcher were successfully completed this morning and green light was given to prepare CryoSat-2 (CS-2) to move to the silo.
For this transport:

• The Space Head Module (SHM) needs to be prepared for integration on the crocodile
  
• and the PayLoad Fairing (PLF) needs to be fitted on its dedicated trolley.
  

This activity was performed under the responsibility of Yuzhnoe, the Ukrainian company which developed the DNIEPR launcher.

As we have already done this activity in February (see CroySat-2 moves to the crocodile), there is nothing you don't know already :-). Let's try however to point a couple of new things...
Here under the encapsulated CS-2 is mated temporarily on a trolley that will be needed tomorrow to roll it up to the crocodile. What is new is the second (empty) SHM on the left. This SHM will be used in few week time for another launch campaign with a similar DNIEPR launcher. The Spacecraft will be this time a German Earth Observation Satellite called Tandem X. The mission is to measure land surface elevation with a high accuracy.
All precautions have been taken to prevent SHM mix up and make sure that the empty one won't go to the Silo on next Thursday!

Here below, a view on the 2 SHMs and the PLF (on the left):

In the background, in parallel, the ASTRIUM team continues packing... This activity is planned from long and has already started as it can't be done at the last minute after launch.

The PLF has also been put on its dedicated trolley for transport to the silo. The short movie shows Yuzhnoe team pushing it closer to the SHM.

Job has been completed for today.

...Time again to shot farewell pictures:
Here part of the Yuzhnoe team.
First lady on the right is the Yuzhnoe Product Assurance Representative

Then the ESA/ASTRIUM team.

Not to forget:
As promised, Yuzhnoe people kindly offered us a Ukrainian specialty to complement our lunch today. This was a tray of small pieces of bread covered with horse radish, calo (Сало), pickles and coriander leaves...
It was absolutely delicious and particularly indicated if we want to pick up a Sumo career!

Next short term steps:

• 31/03 SHM to be integrated in the crocodile

• 01/04 transport of the SHM+PLF to the Silo and EGSE to the Bunker*!

*For getting all 3 EGSE racks (100kgs each) and 1 NDIU rack (200kgs) down to the bunker chamber there is no lift but a 30 meter long and narrow staircase. It is so small and so unpractical that the heavy gang had problems to move in it and not to bump the hardware against the walls and the lateral handrail.
Due to the fragility of this old hardware and the associated risks of the handling, ESA/ASTRIUM team (even if not yet a Sumo fighter team despite the calo supplement at lunch) decided to perform this task on its own (6 persons) and not to rely on external help. As you can imagine this will be a painful task/day that we would imagine in no case to repeat for a 3rd time!

Campaign status and planning

Few days after the campaign has resumed, the status to date is as follows:

• CryoSat-2 Storage phase has formally terminated on 24/03
  
• Unit with patched software to be replaced on launcher has been cleared by local customs on 25/03
  
• and was integrated on the Launcher on 26/03
• Electrical testing of this re-integrated launcher unit is planned on 29/03
• Radiation (communications) tests with the Space Head Module planned on 29/03
• On Spacecraft, Off to Launch mode successfully retested 26/03
  
• Spacecraft side A check was successfully retested 26/03 (check of side B to be completed on 29/03)
  
• Spacecraft battery charging started on 26/03 (to be completed by 29/03)
  
• Transport of the Spacecraft to the Silo on the Crocodile is planned on 1/4
• Transport of the EGSE/NDIU to the Bunker is planned on 1/4
• Battery Voltage + Electrical checks once Spacecraft mated on Launcher at TBD date
• A last venting of the Low Pressure Branches A and B (still under discussion)
  
• Dress rehearsal is planned on 6/4
• Last checks to be performed on 7/4
  
• Launch on 8/4 @19:57 Baikonur time from Launch pad 109 (15:57 CEST)
  

A view on the Encapsulated CryoSat-2 in platforms A and B at MIK site 31 (building 40 Area B) after the "'wall" installed for the 3 week storage has been removed.

CS-2 Team back to Baikonur

As planned, the ESA ASTRIUM CryoSat-2 team reached Baikonur on 23rd of March and is now complete and ready to resume the launch campaign.

The mild weather on Tuesday afternoon in Baikonur (+12C) permitted to sit at a cafe terrace on the Arbat for a bier. A nice way for a "get together again" that concludes the baby sitting/unexpected storage phase before serious things start again.

Credits: Klaus
Good news: The launcher hardware with the new "patched Software" was traveling from Moscow with the team on the same plane. Custom clearance is expected within 2 days. So activities should be soon back on track.

The remaining activities on the SC and launcher sides will be re-planned on 24/03 with the Russians in order to make sure that everything is completed in due time for a launch date planned now on the 8th of April.

But at this very moment:

A warm welcome back to all!

New Launch Date

ESA portal confirmed today 19/03/2010 the CryoSat-2 new launch date on

• 8th April 2010 at 13h57 UT (15:57 ESTEC/ESOC time, 19:57 Baikonur)
  

This delay from the originally planned 25/02/2010, was mainly due to an optimization of the combustion (ratio of fuel to oxidiser) of the second stage engine. Software modifications had to be made. They have now been tested ans validated. Campaign will resume shortly.

Therefore, the complete team is scheduled back to Baikonur on

• 23rd of March

Detailed information can be read on the ESA web site
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html
or Cryosat-2 web site
http://www.esa.int/esaLP/LPcryosat.html

25th is dead, long life to the 25th!

25th of February was originally known as the CryoSat-2 (CS-2) launch date. As everybody knows now, due a problem on the launcher side, the launch date had to be postponed.

The latest news we have today is that the new launch date is now set for March 25th.

This new date consolidates decisions made earlier this week concerning the spacecraft storage period up to February the 12th and the logistic to reduce the team in Baikonur to this date.

Overall schedule is being presently updated for when the campaign will resume.

Not easy to illustrate the message of today with a picture but the one below may show that CS-2 team despite this delay and the work still to be done before launch .... is well on track!


This is the railways track we cross every morning with the bus just before entering the MIK site 31 on the Cosmodrome. This rail track is used to bring heavy equipment by train onto site 31 as well as Soyuz-2 rocket in the future on launch pad 31 (less than 500m from the assembly hall!).

On June 15th 2007, some of the TerraSar launch team were standing on the right side of this rail track to observe the launch from Launch pad 109: the same place from where CryoSat-2 will take off on the 25th of March ...2010 :-)

Team on site will reduce

After Cryosat-2 was safely brought back to the MIK, a couple of days were needed to reconnect all Electrical Ground Segment Equipment (EGSE) and to check the health status of the spacecraft (SC).
This is the set up as it presently looks:


The same type of activities had to be done on the Yuzhnoe side for the Space head Module (SHM).
To date these activities is almost completed (no anomalies reported) and on 25/02 the unexpected storage period will formally start.

Storage is planned at the moment to last till 12th of March with a daily monitoring of:

• Battery voltage (and measurement of the thermistor resistance)
• Area C environmental parameters (T and H2o)
  
• Visibly clean environment
• External activities in area C
  

A reduced team will support the coming "Babysitting" phase of the campaign.

As some team members will fly back home as from next Friday, it was decided to take a group picture. The 2 "happy few'' to stay to support the baby sitting are the 2 from the right side: Klaus and Kirill.


One could say : An almost complete team for a remake of the movie 3 men and a cradle. This movie demonstrated how versatile and creative in baby sitting related tasks men can be when they have no other choice :-)

More seriously, let's wish that this storage won't be a pain but just be a piece of cake!

Russians declared a "NO-GO" on the launcher

Yesterday evening Russians declared a problem on the Launcher side that will definitely lead to a delay of the launch date.

At that stage, please refer to the main ESA portal or the CryoSat-2 portal for the latest official information when it becomes known.

As a direct consequence, the "dress rehearsal" has been canceled for today. All efforts will now aim to put the Spacecraft within the safest configuration and location for this unexpected storage period. To that respect, it is considered to bring CryoSat-2 back to the MIK on site 31 area B. Then, some "baby sitting" activities will be organised.

Long discussions with the Russians will take place today to reach a credible re-planning. It is premature, without consolidated information to tell more now.
...
Some of the team members may think that they will now spend the rest of their life in Kazakhstan till a successful fix is announced. Just a practical info: the Kazakh cemetery lays just behind the hotel :-)

Credits: Bill

Some others may start packing for a short visit to their home place


But like these happy penguins on an EGSE screen saver, the CryoSat-2 team, beyond the evident disappointment, keeps an excellent moral,


and will show, as usual, in the next days high professional skills and commitment.

The crocodile closed its jaws

The truck is waiting to be loaded:


Once pushed to the truck, the encapsulated CryoSat-2 (CS-2) is lifted by a crane inside the open container and firmly fixed into it:


The full container is then tilted:


...and the crocodile closes its jaws,
Movie not processed, showing real time motion


The launcher fairing is put on the empty trolley and will follow the SC trailed by a separate truck.


After the closing of the hatch, the convoy will be ready to leave to the silo first thing on next Monday morning.

Baikonur Surgeon brought huge support to the project

Few days ago engineers detected a non nominal drop of power on one of the Spacecraft antennas.

With the support of an infra red camera supplied by the Russian a "hot spot" was detected in a wave guide (narrow tube) inside the spacecraft. Then, it became a serious assumption that "something", reflecting the radiation, had sneaked in a place where it should not have.

But how to reach this place almost in the "heart" of the spacecraft without putting it in pieces?
The best option to confirm this hypothesis was then to perform an endoscopic examination through this narrow canal.

After having dropped out the option to get an endoscope brought from Europe (too long and too complicated), it was then envisaged to use a local endoscope and possibly a medical one as those used by surgeons to look in lungs or stomach....

Two medical endoscopes were available at the Baikonur. The reply of the Baikonur Hospital to the project's request (with the very efficient support from our Russian colleagues) to borrow one was positive: The loan should be short in order not to disrupt the medical activity and would have to be supported by a medical Surgeon to operate it.

The first question of Tatiana, the Surgeon, when she arrived at the MIK was:
-Where is the patient?
-In the clean room!
...was the answer

She then dressed like a surgeon before an operation with protective gown strapped in the back while engineering personnel in clean rooms put it the other way (strapped on the front) and put latex gloves as she was going to operate on a real patient.

Then the CS-2 examination could start:


A second attempt with a thinner endoscope was the successful one: the "foreign object"could be seen but not identified yet.

Below is a picture of the "foreign object" as seen in the waveguide via the medical endoscope (the "object" is the dark spot at the bottom of the tube, positioned in the curve in fact):

Credits: Richard

After the "object" had been seen, the second step was now to extract it.

For that purpose, Tatiana made the use of a pinch which is a built- in feature of the endoscope and asked for the support of a surgeon-assistant.
Instructions were very clear:
-Push the thumb-handle to open the pinch and pull to close it.


To make it short, this method was successfully applied after several attempts together with the support of an external magnet to facilitate the move of the magnetic object through the wave guide.

After a period of intensive suspense and effort the foreign object eventually went out. This event was welcome by a big applause in clean room.

This is the piece that was extrated the end...


It is not the intention here to enter into technical details. Investigations have obviously continued to answer numerous questions before the problem could be definitely closed from engineering and project standpoints. But the good news is that with all these amazing efforts from ALL the team here in Baikonur, the power of the antenna is now back to normal and the campaign is back on track.

Tatiana was certainly of great help for us and was congratulated by Richard, ESA CS-2 project manager, who gave her a small gold-plated CryoSat-2 pin as a present for her intervention on a very unusual patient.

She just replied:
-Ja ochen' rada pomoch' (i am very glad to help)

and added that this very day was in fact ... Tatiana's day!