Some of the team at Kourou

Some of the team at Kourou

Last night’s Kourou Diary update from Charlotte Beskow. This time: teams burn the candle late on three continents as Launch Readiness Review looms nearer. Thanks Charlotte!

D – 6 : Launch Readiness Review
Kourou, 7 February 2011 – Monday

Monday evening now… and it’s far too late!

Today, we tested the Red and Green Signals from the Control Room. These
signals slow or stop the countdown in case of problems either with ATV or
with the Control Centre. Another step on the road to launch!

Now, we are busy with the Certificate of Flight Readiness – a truly worldwide effort! There are numerous teams working across the globe: The lights are burning late in Kourou, Houston, Paris, Noordwijk, Bremen, Cologne, Moscow and who knows where else. Everyone is plodding away, closing out our various actions in order to get the certificate of flight readiness signed off.

The popular image of ‘rocket scientists’ walking around in their white coats, furrowing their brows and making quick decisions may be true (see picture, except our coats are not necessarily white :-)) but it needs to be complemented by an army of conscientious plodders who painstakingly check the implementation of hundreds of changes across hundreds of documents (you do your math and you end up with thousands of references, right?).

Changes, non-conformances, validation of requirements, testing reports, tracking of follow-up actions, etc., all involve myriad details that need to be firmly controlled before we can sit at the Launch Readiness Review (due on Thursday, 10 February) and clearly state that ATV-2 is ready to go.

The devil is in the details! Just a few more details to finalise before I can close yet another item on the open work list. Anyway, it is pouring with rain outside so the evening’s jogging is postponed – lucky break since jogging here is sweaty work. It is actually the only place I know where running against the wind is a lot better than running with the wind at your back. 🙂 It cools your face and keeps the mosquitos away…

— Charlotte

PS: Good thing the CSG cook likes me and gives me extra-large helpings of food at lunch. Otherwise I would have given up hours ago.
PPS: CSG has just announced they are closing the building for the night… time to go!