Kevin's Journal: June 4, 2005

Slow Down, Y'move Too Fast

As many of you have heard, the launch has moved from no earlier than June 26 to no no earlier than July 6. This is to allow the rocket folks to replace the 3rd stage nozzle. The nozzle is extendable, so that it can have maximal efficiency as the surrounding air pressure declines, and testing revealed that the extender system had more friction than nominal. Even though it is still within spec, they decided to play it safe and swap in the nozzle from the mission set to launch next (Astro-F). (Or so I've heard.) This takes a while, hence the delay.

We GSFCers are taking this opportunity to come home for a while. Some of us will return on the 19th, some on the 27th.

Today we are rehearsing the launch day activities. For XRS, this means we sit and wait, until 245 seconds after "launch," when the ACHE (ADR Control & Housekeeping Electronics; see "How Does the XRS Work" page) will be powered and we'll get temperature measurements from the dewar.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Yesterday the three members of the XRS team still here (Fujimoto-san, Furusho-san, and I) went for a short vacation to the western peninsula. Apparently there's not much to do on the eastern one, where we are. This is something we did once during Astro-E(1), so we mostly retraced our path. The ferry across the bay used to be a large one that could hold 50 cars or so; it's now a cute little teeny tiny baby ferry that holds 6 cars. Apparently business isn't so good any more.

We went to a place where they bury you in black sand, which is heated from below by lava (well, somewhere down there is lava, anyway the ground is hot). I'd never done that before. They warn you that 10 minutes is about enough, but personally the regular bath (onsen) afterwards was hotter. Then a quick dowsing in the cold bath and you're ready for anything!

Then we went to a noodle place in which you have to fish your noodles out of the rotating water with chopsticks. I didn't get a photo with the noodles swimming in the moat, but you can get an idea of how fast the water is rotating (probably 78 rpm) in the photo to the right.