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It's now 3PM on July 5, which means that if the weather holds
Astro-E2 will be in orbit tomorrow at this time. Okay,
"holds" is understating the issue, given that there are
winds howling at what must be approaching 30MPH. But at least it's
not raining at this precise instant. In fact, the clouds are rather thin.
The good news is that the 48 hour notification requirement has been
dropped. Which means that if we can't launch on the 6th, we are free
to try on the 7th. Most of you already know, but for those who
don't, the agreement between JAXA and the local fishermen included a
provision that we had to provide 48 hours notice of a launch, so if
we had to scrub on the 6th due to weather, we wouldn't be allowed to
try again until the 8th. Apparently that exquisite little
inconvenience has been sent to Davy Jones, where it belongs.
There's a really nasty occluded front just North of us, that's
drenching the Northern half of Kyushu island. If it moves a bit
south, we're in for a soaking. So we're hoping it won't. Keep an
eye on
XRS news page
for updates as we get closer to launch. Also, JAXA/ISAS will have
streaming video you can see in the privacy of your own home. Look
for it starting an hour or so before launch, at
ISAS TV or JAXA TV.
The bells! Someone save me from the bells! The hallways of the
lovely Cosmopia Hotel are filled with the sound of various American
songs played on what sounds like a music box. It gets old after a
while.
It's now 7:45 PM, and the weather is horrid. But they made the
decision to continue toward launch, and hope that the small window of
good weather that is currently East of us will arrive just in time
for launch. Chances are slim, but we press on nonetheless.
Next step is to close the last valve to the helium tank, which we
will do in 15 minutes. I'm only here to run the video camera,
myself. Then I'll go back to the hotel and sleep until 2AM. Unless
they scrub the launch between now and then. I suspect the scrub
won't happen until just an hour or two before launch. Unless we get
lucky and actually launch.
Further information as we learn more...
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