Monday, 22nd February, Day 43

In view of the current situation, Saturday was a working day. The Space Head Module, SHM, including Cryosat-2 was demated from the rocket and transported back to the integration area. Today an electrical test of Cyrosat-2 was perfomed to confirm its health after transportation. In the next days we will clean-up the working area such that on Friday, 26th Feb. most of the team may return home for a while. In the meantime the team is very small with only 8 persons (6 Astrium, 2 ESA), see picture of the day. Two colleagues (1 Astrium, 1 ESA) will stay here for the babysitting of Cryosat-2, which we do not want to leave alone without a certain monitoring.

CryoSat Team, ready for short holiday at home

Friday, 19th February, Day-40, L-6

This was planned to be a very interesting day - and it was, however in an unexpected way. The planned launch day rehearsal had to be cancelled due to the announced Launch Delay of the Launch Service Provider. We will continue our daily blog latest as soon as we return to the normal schedule. The team is disappointed after all the successful work of the last days.

Bye for now.

Thursday, 18th February, Day-39, L-7

In view of the launch day dry run (dress rehearsal) tomorrow, there was another Cryosat-2 switch-on today to verify few small fine-tunings of the launch procedure. In parallel packing continued.

Weather: around -5°C, cloudy, later sunny

The pictures of the day give more info on several monuments of the city of Baikonur which show several key persons and milestones of space history

left image: Mitrofan Nedelin, Chief of the Strat. Rocket Forces, representing all the victims
of the R-16 rocket explosion on 24th October 1960 - right image: Sergej Korolev, Former Key
Designer of Rockets and Satellites

Yuri Gagarin, first Man in Space

Wednesday, 17th February, Day-38, L-8

Cryosat-2 which is installed on the rocket since L-10 was switched-on again remote controlled from the integration centre, MIK (in about 7km distance to the silo), to check the proper achievement of the launch configuration. It worked also well and we can look forward to the dry run of the launch day (dress rehearsal) on Friday. During the dress rehearsal the communication to the mission control centre and to the Russian colleagues from launcher side is checked. Today also packing continued.

Special of the day:    German Car - Good Car

In addition to the frequently operating public busses, which could at home easily pass as an old-timer the main part of the public transport is executed by taxis. Each car in Baikonur is also a taxi. The rules are simple. Waving makes the next car stop. Even the appearance of a group of possible passengers makes the cars drive slowly checking for a small bargain. As the area of the city is limited, there is only a fixed price of 20 Rubles per person (about 50 cent), no matter how far you want to go.

The favourite cars in Baikonur are German cars of the eighties and nineties. The communication with the driver is usually weak as they only speak Russian and we don’t. But the answer on the driver’s question where we come from makes him smile and answer “German Car- Good Car!”

Weather: -4°C in the morning around 0°C during the day, only bit of sun.

Tuesday, 16th February, Day-37, L-9

After successful preparation in the bunker yesterday, Cryosat-2 could be switched-on the first time on the DNEPR launcher to check the health of all satellite systems after transport and mating on the rocket. Parallel to this activity packing of MGSE items which are not needed anymore continued. The heavy multi-purpose trolley and lifting device were stowed in their containers.

The picture of the day shows the DNEPR rocket which will launch Cryosat-2 in a few days into its orbit of about 720 km at 92° inclination. DNEPR has a total weight of about 211 Tons. Special for DNEPR is that the whole rocket is located and launched from a silo (subsurface) and not as usually from a launch tower.

Weather: -14°C in the morning, sunny during the day. The evening temperatures are in the last days significantly higher, yesterday only -4°C.

Dnepr LV -Description and main specifications

Monday, 15th February, Day-36, L-10

Heavy activities had to be done today. In total about one ton of EGSE equipment had to be transported by hand into the bunker which is close to the silo. The bunker room where the EGSE had to be located is accessible only via several stairs. Fortunately we had strong support from Russian colleagues. The link to the MIK and to ESOC was checked and works. In the silo the rocket is installed since a long time which in the meantime is also fuelled. Around noon the “crocodile” (see daily report of 12th Feb.) left the MIK to transport Cryosat-2 inside the SHM to the launch pad for integration on top of the rocket. We had a chance to accompany the transport. We achieve milestone, after milestone with launch approaching.

Weather: -17°C (morning), sunny

Remark to Week-end:

as usually it passed quickly. Most of us have been in the city together with a lot of local people from Baikonur despite the low temperatures. Both days have been sunny. Saturday started cold with -18°C, Sunday started also cold but in the afternoon there was only -4°C. On Saturday evening we had a nice and familiar Asian style dinner together with our colleagues from KOSMOTRAS, which we already now since a long time.

Thursday/ Friday , 11th/12th February, Day-32/-33, L-14/-13

Joint operations continued. Cryosat-2 has been switched-on after encapsulation in space head module, SHM, to check the function of the subsystems. Also the remaining tests of the Russian colleagues on the SHM have been completed nominally. Therefore transfer of the SHM including Cryosat-2 to the “Crocodile” was released and could be done. The crocodile is a green colored special truck which transports the SHM in horizontal position to the silo. The truck has a special transport container which is rotated vertical for loading with SHM. In vertical position the upper part of the container opens again by rotating and the SHM can be installed. The open container looks very impressive and reminds a bit on a crocodile with open mouth.  After SHM fixation inside the transport container, it closes and rotates back to horizontal position and is now ready to move to the silo. This is planned for Monday. A successful week is finished-time - we deserve the week-end.

Weather: -23°C on Thursday, on Friday -26°C (coldest day), always sunny

Wednesday 10 February, Day 31, L-15

First day of ‘joint operations’ with our Russian colleagues. As described yesterday, it started with the transfer of CryoSat-2 on its trolley to Hall B close to the adapters on their support stand. Then the satellite was lifted by crane from its trolley to the adapter system and attached to the Launch Vehicle Adapter. Then the umbilical connectors were connected. In the afternoon our Russian colleagues took over and did the transfer to the SHM lower part (platform B). After completion of the last red/green tag item activities (e.g removal of the star tracker Covers and lifting brackets), the SHM was closed with the upper part (platform A) - CryoSat-2 disappeared slowly. Our feelings were rather mixed; we were a bit sad to lose close contact to our ‘baby’ but mainly we were happy about how smoothly today’s operations had gone and to have got through to this phase of the campaign.

Weather: -22°C, sunny

Tuesday 9 February, Day 30, L-16 

Red/green tag item activity continued and we received the satellite adapter for installation of the multi-layer isolation, MLI. The satellite adapter (quadratic) remains on the satellite for flight. It is attached to the launch vehicle adapter (circular) which provides the separation devices and this one remains attached to the space head module, SHM.

In the afternoon the flight readiness review (FRR) was held as a teleconference with colleagues at home at ESTEC, ESOC and Astrium. The green light to start the joint operations tomorrow with the launch vehicle was agreed - a real milestone. The first step of the joint operations is the mating of CryoSat-2 to both adapters tomorrow morning.

Weather: -22°C, sunny

Further comments about the week-end:

As reported yesterday there was a Kazakh-style dinner on Saturday. In addition to the local delicacies we were treated to some traditional songs from a nice girl in traditional costume.

Monday 8 February, Day 29, L-17

Red/green tag item activity continued with solar array panel removal at the end of the afternoon. On launcher side, the dry-run of the rocket and the space head module, SHM (without satellite), at the silo was finished successfully and the SHM returned to Integration Centre (MIK) for loading with CryoSat-2 in the middle of the week - another important milestone will then be achieved.

Weather: -23°C, sunny

Comments about the week-end: cold - Saturday was cloudy and -22°C,  and only few people ventured out of the hotel. Sunday also cold, -18°C in the afternoon, but sunny which made it easier to walk around. On Saturday evening the cook surprised us with a dinner in the Kazakh tradition. We enjoyed it very much, and spent a bit longer over dinner than usual.

Friday 5 February, Day 26, L-20 

In the late morning pressurisation was finished. The final propellant mass is 36.7 kg of nitrogen at a tank pressure of 272 bar which should be sufficient for at least for 3.5 years of mission. After propellant loading CryoSat-2 was switched on for verification of the launch procedure, which commands the satellite into the launch mode with most of subsystems being switched on with the instruments like SIRAL and DORIS ‘off’. The afternoon was given over to red/green tag item activity. This activity will be continued over the next days to bring CryoSat-2 to launch configuration - like closing of open test connectors or closing open access areas on the multi-layer insulation.

Work on the launch vehicle continued as planned. Currently the space head module (SHM without SC) is installed in the silo to check all interfaces and operations. Therefore two team members from CryoSat-2 verified the harness on rocket side, which is used to operate the satellite after installation on the launcher.

The return of team members back home also continued today. ESA project manager Richard Francis and another ESA colleague left, together with three of our Astrium colleagues. There are now 11 people remaining in Baikonur, nine from Astrium and two from ESA, similar to the beginning of the campaign.

Weather: - 21°C, sunny, cloudy later in the day.

View from office at the launch site.

Thursday 4 February, Day 25, L-21

As planned, propellant tank pressurisation with nitrogen was the only activity of the day. As a safety precaution access to the cleanroom was prohibited, with the pressurisation crew working from a second EGSE room. People not involved in the pressurisation activity used the time to prepare the test reports for the previous tests. At the end of the day roughly 36.5 kg of nitrogen had been been loaded at about 270 bar. A certain amount of fine-tuning will be done tomorrow after tank temperature has returned to the ambient temperature of the cleanroom.  

Weather: - 20°C, sunny

Propellant loading team.

Wednesday 3 February, Day 24, L-22

We left the hotel at 8.15 am but today the place to go first was the viewing point of the Gagarin Launch Pad where at 9:45 am the Soyus launch no. 726 was planned (Sojus-U, Progress M-04M) as we announced in yesterday’s blog. It was a cold morning, about -18°C with sunrise starting and a clear sky. The view point offered a very good sight of the rocket still inside its launch tower. The distance to the launch pad was only about one to two km. After the first photos taken outside the bus the temperature convinced us to return to the bus and wait inside. At about half an hour before the launch the two halfs of the tower started to rotate away from the rocket (see first picture below). At 9:40 am we hurried to leave the bus, wearing all available clothes! Impressive noise and light signalled the ignition of the engines and the Soyus rocket started to move off exactly on time. The lift-off was impressive. Those of us equipped with good cameras and binoculars could even see the separation of the boosters. The sound died away very quickly due to the wind direction and finally only a cloud remained which also cleared away also very soon. It was an impressive experience and, as far as we know, a successful one. We hope to relive the same soon with the Dnepr rocket that will loft CryoSat-2.     

Back at work, the propellant loading on CryoSat-2 began. Since the satellite is not switched on during this operation, there was time for most of the team to continue the evaluation of the previous test results and prepare the test reports.

Tuesday 2 February, Day 23, L-23

This morning the last test, the function test of the S-band patch antenna on top of the satellite, took place. At short notice there was a chance to see the loading truck which later on will bring our CryoSat-2 - inside the Space Head Module (SHM) - to the launch pad. In parallel to the S-band test, preparation of the propellant tanking by pressurisation with nitrogen also began. Today we have reached Day 23 of the launch campaign and Day 23 before the launch (L-23). The taste of the launch increases by meetings on the agreement of the count-down sequence and tomorrow we are pleased that we are going to see a Soyuz rocket launch. Its payload is a Progress cargo transporter to supply the International Space Station with fuel and food etc.  

Weather: - 14°C, sunny

Monday 1 February, Day 22

Today the CryoSat-2 operator team could at least relax a bit, because they had only to power up the satellite and then ‘hand over’ to ESOC in Darmstadt for final verification of the operating procedures in orbit during this SVT (System Verification Test). In view of the five-hour time delay between Baikonur and Darmstadt, the test started and finished late with a final teleconference at about 9:00 pm. Therefore we worked in two shifts. An important milestone has been achieved: all satellite tests have been completed successfully except one short test of the S-band antenna on the top of the satellite (between the solar arrays) which is due to be done tomorrow.

In view of the upcoming return travel of several colleagues tomorrow and in view of the excellent status today, we decided spontaneously to celebrate this milestone in our hotel although it was already a bit late. All the team was not only very satisfied and happy about the status achieved but also aboutbthe excellent cooperation within the different companies and organisations (ESA, Astrium, TAS and CNES) and all hope that the ‘CryoSat Spirit’ will continue in further collaborations. Thanks again to all!

Weather: - 10°C, sunny

Retrospective to Sunday:

Sunny and only -4°C in the afternoon. Most of the CryoSat-2 people enjoyed being outdoors after all the days and hours of being obliged to stay indoors. In the evening we went into the town to have dinner in a Russian restaurant. We were surprised as there was a birthday party already taking place when we arrived with a lot of singing and entertainment. Soon we were asked to join in - we think we did a good job! It was so unexpected and we had a lovely evening.