Transit Day 10 – Arrival to Launch Site & L-3 Day Operations

As planned ACS Captain Lars Haaheim and LP Captain Artle Knutsen arrived at our launch site on the equator at 154 degrees west longitude at 05:00.  The LP nestled in on top of the equator at 154 degrees while the ACS was positioned just south of the equator at a bearing of 130 degrees from the LP at a distance of 6.5 km.  Once the vessels arrived at their required positions the team wasted no time in starting L-3 Day operations.

 

ACS Captain Lars Haaheim

 

Captain Knutsen began the skilled process of filling the LP ballast tanks with sea water to lower the LP by over 20 meters into a stable configuration.  This process can take up to 10 hours to accomplish, thanks to the skill of the LP marine crew it was complete in approximately 7 hours today. By 09:00 the teams were ready to begin the crew transfer process using the Bell 212 helicopter under the control of Evergreen helicopter pilots Nick Clarno, Harlan Dixon and Ryan Lehman. 

 

TCO Galia Kaplan and Purser Iryna Shylkina oversee the crew transfer lists

 

ACS Safety OfficerVadym Prokhorenko monitors the incoming helicopter

Crew waiting to transfer to the LP get a closeup view of Evergreen pilots landing on the ACS

Today’s activities are primarily centered around initialization of systems that will be used for launch.  Some of the more significant tasks include the installation and alignment of various antennas used to communicate with the spacecraft, launch vehicle and between vessels.  This is one of the first tasks required to be accomplished as the rest of the team’s ability to test their systems depend on it.  The Semco team of Steen Nielsen, Ivan Johnsen, Jesper Hansen, Richard Dutchik, John Pedersen, Leif Rughaven and Ken Yamada never disappoint in this regard and today was no different the links were established in approximately 1 hour and we were off.

Once the communication links were established the spacecraft team headed by Astrium’s Piere-Yves Barat powered up the Eutelsat 70B spacecraft, and successfully verified the communication links between the ACS and spacecraft and performed necessary health checks and battery charging activities.  The Boeing Payload Unit Team led by Lance Neal also successfully conducted testing of their communications link with the Boeing built payload unit.

The specialists from RSC Energia, Yuzhnoye, Yuzhmash and TsENKi also performed various checks of their systems and initialized their equipment to begin the process for rolling out the rocket and launch. One of the interesting tasks performed by RSC Energia is the sampling of Kerosene used as fuel in the Zenit 1^st and 2^nd stages.  The ACS has its very own chemical lab on board to perform various tests to validate the quality of consumables such as the Kerosene. The Chemical Laboratory is under the watchful eye of RSC Energia Manager, Valentina Andreeva.  Today’s testing of the Kerosene was successfully completed without any issues. 

The final test of the day is the firefighting system (FIFI) situated around the launch pad.  The water show is not quite like the Bellagio Fountains in Las Vegas but it is pretty spectacular nonetheless.  Four high pressure nozzles shoot water high into the air to validate the operation of this critical system.

 

The Fire fighting system test shooting water high into the air

 

By the end of the day, Mission Director Dr. Valery Aliev confirmed successful completion of L-3 day activities and readiness to proceed into L-2 day.  A great job by the entire team today.

 

A great shot of the Helicopter coming in for a night landing on the ACS with the sunset in the horizon and its landing light reflecting off of the water

 

 

Evergreen pilots coming in for a night landing on the ACS