A Voyage to Mission Success: Transit Day 4 – Meetings & Customer Welcome Dinner

For most, Saturday is the start of the weekend but for the ELUS launch team at sea it is a work day packed full of meetings and training. The day as always starts with the Mission Directors 0830 status meeting to review the current system status and planned work. All segments attend the meeting and provide reports including a daily weather report from the onboard weather specialist Mike Patnoe. Mike is garnering a lot of attention as we are keeping a watchful eye on the Launch Platform transit speed. The Launch Platform (LP) speed is the driving factor for determining the date and time for launch site arrival. And as one can imagine the weather specifically wind and waves play a critical role in the speed of the LP. The LP is a massive structure with ~200ft (60m) above the waterline making for a large sail to catch winds from any direction. Today is a good day with the LP traveling at 10 knots and with compliments of Mr. Patnoe a nice tailwind of ~22 knots. The launch team will continue to monitor the LP speed and weather closely over the next few days to nail down the expected arrival time to the launch site.

There are an additional 8 meetings on the calendar for the remainder of the day including training for those launch team members that will be transferring between the ACS and LP once we are at the launch site. Crew transfers occur via two methods: Link Bridge and Helicopter. Both of these methods have manageable but inherent risks associated with them that require training to mitigate those risks. Even the most seasoned veterans of Sea Launch need to be reminded of the safety procedures so this is required training for every mission. Galia Kaplan, Transportation Coordinator & Security, performs the trainings along with the ACS Safety officer. With our international launch team this means that the training is conducted in Russian and English with the help of one of our superb onboard translators, Sasha Trushkin.

Another significant meeting was the integrated Rehearsal 2 debrief led by the Mission Director Dr. Valery Aliev. All segments including the customer participated in the meeting where each of the simulated anomalies was discussed individually. The MD reviews the objective of the anomaly, the execution of the launch team in handling the anomaly and any lessons learned that can be garnered from the team that will in the event of an actual anomaly improve the response. This is a prime example of one of our closed looped processes that captures lessons learned and incorporates them into the operational documentation for the next time providing for a continuous learning process. Overall the MD was pleased with the performance of the launch team during Rehearsal 2 and there were a few lessons learned that will be incorporated in time for Rehearsal 3 in a few days.

From a social perspective today is the first VIP dinner to welcome our customer Eutelsat and the spacecraft manufacturer Astrium. This is a small gathering of the leadership from all segments in the VIP dining room located on the 3^rd Bridge deck. It is another opportunity for our Chef to present his skills in preparing a spectacular four course meal. Eighteen representatives from Eutelsat, Astrium, ELUS, RSC Energia, Yuzhnoye, Yuzhmash, TsENKi, Boeing and the ACS Captain, Lars Haheim were all present. The Chief Catering Officer Ove Rosenberg presented the menu and wine list to the attendees just prior to the first course being served. Overall the evening was a big success with a very relaxed atmosphere and many tall tales of previous adventures on board the Sea Launch Commander being told. For me personally the hit of the evening was the dessert course, Baked Alaska, awesome!