Whoa we're launching in less than a week!

So our launch date has officially been moved up to May 11th at 2pm and we're all ready to go! Last week we finished up a bunch of tests and had a visit by the astronauts. here's a picture of them with two of our carrier managers (managers are the two standing up).






When astronauts show up there's always a TON of picture taking going on (in fact, i sometimes think the only reason they come IS to take pictures). here's one of them in front of a video camera...you can't see the three other professional cameras....and me.





And to prove I actually do work, here's one of me connecting up a cable for one of our final tests. I'm wearing that really cool clean room suit and a harness so i don't fall and hurt myself (but really so i don't hurt the hardware).











Today we took a tour of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) facility. We learned all kinds of cool things like one SSME creates around 350,000 pounds of thrust which is about as much as one Saturn V engine. I also got to stand in it!

I'll put up some pictures of the famous Apollo Mission Control Center in Houston. Starting on 5/11 i'll be in Houston working 12 hour shifts for 12 days straight until the mission is complete....woo!

Working At The Pad

So this past week I've been working out at the pad. We've been connecting our hardware to the shuttle, and my job has been supervising all the KSC techs...suuuuuuuper boring however, the nice thing is I can take a bunch of stupid pictures of me in the cargo bay!

The room we're in is called PCR (Payload Changeout Room). there's a big wall of stairs,(above) and plaforms that can move forward and away from the shuttle. Its called the PGHM has a bunch of hooks that grabs all our hardware from the 'can' and then sticks it in the shuttle bay.

Left side of PCR and PGHM

Here's me in front of the shuttle airlock.

PGHM hook. One of our carriers is on the right under the wrapping.

Looking up the Shuttle payload bay door

Canada Arm

Me playing with the PGHM

Shuttle at night

How the payload gets in the shuttle

Here's a bunch of pictures to show how our payload gets installed in the shuttle.

Our carriers that carry the payloads: MULE, FSS, ORUC and SLIC from left to right

Here's the pad. On the left is the RSS which is where the payload goes (light gray area).
Our stuff gets out to the pad via the ''can''.

Our payload is installed in the can then rotated to this standing position.
Here's the can leaving for the pad

Can enroute to Pad A

Later that day, the can arrives at the pad. Techs will lift it into the RSS and
prepare the payload for removal.

Here's a pic of the RSS with the can installed (white rectangle in middle of gray structure).

That's the can in the middle of the RSS. The RSS stays open until our
stuff is removed from the can.

One last picture of the RSS with the can.

There is a room in the RSS called the Payload Changeout Room (PCR). We spent A LOT of time there. Above is a picture of the can with its doors open.

A big machine called the PGHM (pronounced piggum) pulls the payload out of the can and then sticks it in the shuttle. The PGHM is the white thing on the right that rolls and grabs our stuff.

When the payload is inside the PCR, the can is lowered and the RSS rotates
onto the shuttle as seen above.

The shuttle's payload bay doors open and the payload is unbagged. The PGHM can now roll forward and install our carriers.

That's all there is to it! We spent a whole week in that PCR watching techs only to get our mission delayed and everything taken out! Yay!

Our carriers are back in the processing facility and this coming week we will do our last tests before returning to Maryland. Then, in a few months, we can come back and do it all again!