The Steppe (draft)

Kazakh Steppe around Baikonur, as we discover it on our commuting trips every day from hotel sputnik to the MIK in the cosmodrome always offers a wide range of extremely beautiful landscapes.

Light at Dusk and dawn makes the landscapes simply amazing.

Sun rise on the steppe when arriving at the MIK in the morning (ca 09:00 am)



The steppe during day light (observation point for Launch pad #109)


A young dog used to live in the steppe


...and likely his or her mother few meters away.


Sun set on the steppe when leaving the MIK (ca 18:00)



A. Tchekhov's novel "the Steppe" - or the story of a trip, describes the fascination of the Russian writer for that kind of desert land. In this novel, partly autobiographic, A. Tchekhov is the young Iegorushka on the horse pulled carriage traveling together with his uncle Kouzmitchov (a wool trader) and Father Khristofor an orthodox priest. Another interesting character is Deniska the carriage coachman.

The young Iegorushka leaves home for the first time for going to high school in a larger city. It is mid summer time. The kid is a bit afraid by this adventure but he is also amazed by this trip so that he will remember it all his life long.

The Steppe is one of the first Tchekhov's novel (published in 1888) after he revisited ca 1887 the country of his childhood around Taganrog on the North East side of the Black Sea where he was born. The Novel is a sequence of sections describing a trip through the steppe likely between Tangarog and Rostov (?). It is also a sequence of beautiful paintings depicting the variety of the steppe: Fauna, storm, overnight in the Jewish inn, churches and villages, nomads, wool traders, legends... A. Tchekhov himself, very proud of this work, would have said "it is my master piece".

He describes with lot of emotion the beauty of these changing landscapes. He also says that there are no better places than the steppe to observe the starry sky at night.

to be continued...

Unpacking

The spacecraft was removed safely from its container and showed after careful inspection (excepted the solar array that will be inspected later) that no damages have occurred during the transportation.

Opening of the Transport Container (solar arrays on the bottom side are still protected):


Cryosat-2 and Mechanical Ground Segment Equipment in the clean room:


Cryosat-2 (CS-2) on its General Purpose Adapter. Note the 2 large radar antennas on the left hand side of the Spacecraft. Behind the antenna bench, one can find the redundant instrument (named SIRAL-2) which is an altimeter. It is not visible on the picture but located on the instrument plate. One can see the extremity of this plate on the left hand side (silver color). The instrument is partly covered with Multi Layer Insulation (MLI) foil for thermal protection purposes and also by Solar Arrays that give CS-2 this particular shape of dog house.

CryoSat-2 team has reached Baikonur

The Cryosat-2 (CS-2) convoy and team left IABG in Munich on 12/01/2010 at 9:00
IABG is the place where the spacecraft has been tested and then stored.

The convoy was made of 6 shipping containers (spacecraft and all the support equipment) carried on 3 large trucks. The total mass was approximately 36 tons.

After loading the payload on the cargo plane, and a last minute de-icing of the plane, the Antonov left Munich airport at 19:00 (local time) and headed to Yulianovsk (a 625.000 inhabitant city on the Volga river), where the payload and the crew were cleared by Russian customs.

The plane took off from Yulianovsk at 04:15 am on 13/01/2010 Munich time (07:15 am local time) and landed on the Baikonur cosmodrome airport (Yubilenyi) after a roughly 2 hours trip at 06:30 am Munich time ( 11:30 am local time).

The story was not over for the day. After the unloading of the Spacecraft, the convoy needed to reach the MIK (Montazhnyi Integratsyi Komplekc) where activities such as final integration and tests will take place. Due to bumpy roads of the cosmodrome, only a very slow speed of the convoy could prevent dangerous shocks for the Spacecraft. 3 hours were needed to complete this ca 15 kilometer trip. The 6 containers were then immediately unloaded in a dedicated area of building 31.

All theses activities were completed at 21:00h local time.

A long day for the all team and particularly for those who travelled with the Antonov who had few sleeping hours only the last night. But sure, we all remember this extraordinary experience!


More details on the Munich departure:
http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEM1UZLJ74G_index_0.html

Here is a 360 view of the landscape at the landing place:




Few other pictures of the Antonov:

Front view:

Cargo bay (almost empty)

Loading of the containers in the Antonov


Passenger cabin (located between the wings and the rudder on the upper part of the fuselage. Note that there are no windows next to the seats. Temperature during flight was was most of the time equatorial!

Kitchen

Cargo in flight