Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 20:29:02 -0400 From: Kimberly Strong To: MANTRA email list Subject: MANTRA 2002 - Tuesday, August 27 Status MANTRA 2002 - Tuesday, August 27 Status Greetings from Vanscoy, Personnel on site: - Rejean Michaud from CSA arrived on site at Vanscoy yesterday - Bob Hall and David Barton left us several days ago for other committments We decided not to launch tonight as there were/are still a number of tasks and tests that we really want to do before flight. Both surface and stratospheric winds look good for Wednesday night, so we are now preparing to be flight ready for launch tomorrow. Ozonesondes - 10th launch this morning with large Raven balloon, reached 38 km (Rejean recovered this for us using the GPS - we have recovered about half of our sondes thanks to this new system) Major tasks before we go "on station" at 7 PM Wednesday, aiming for 2 AM launch Thursday: - initial solar alignment of the pointing system, SPS-B1, MAESTRO-B, and MSC FTS (done outdoors earlier today) - more accurate alignment using lasers indoors (underway now) - solar checks of alignment outdoors - some work on pointing system software - internal alignment of MSC FTS - integration and testing of new sensor monitoring system with MSC FTS - implementation of alternative control and data backup for DU FTS to get second MCT channel - writing command format and choosing integration times for MAESTRO-B - testing of pointing system command of SPS-B1, MAESTRO-B, and MSC FTS (tomorrow) - hanging test of pointing system with 100-foot crane (tomorrow) - final payload assembly (tomorrow) - payload functional tests, including data logger (tomorrow) - repeat of interference (RFI) test if time permits (tomorrow) Media coverage continues. The National Post ran a second story which is on the web at http://www.nationalpost.com/search/site/story.asp?id=A03451D5-9D50-46B1-ADDC-A112F4446589 I did a live interview on CBC Radio Edmonton this morning. Tomorrow, Tom will be interviewed live on the morning show on CBC TV. The program will be carried nationally on Newsworld and on the main CBC on-air network in western Canada. The program will air at 6:45 local time in Saskatchewan, which is 8:45 EST. All for now. Kim MANTRA Home Page: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/MANTRA/ MANTRA 2002: http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/MANTRA/mantra_2002.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Kimberly Strong, Associate Professor Department of Physics, University of Toronto Room MP 710A, 60 St. George Street Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1A7, Canada Telephone: (416) 946-3217, Fax: (416) 978-8905 Email: strong@atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/ http://www.atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/people/strong/strong.html ----------------------------------------------------------------