STATUS. Last week, the team focused on completing the final tidbits for getting the payload ready to go, with the rocket motor group getting each of the motors mounted on the rail. The entire rocket is now on the rail and ready to go. Vertical checks were completed yesterday afternoon with no notable issues.

Downrange, we are ready here in Longyearbyen and KHO, thanks to help from Dag Lorentzen, Fred Sigernes, Kjellmar Oksavik and Margit Dyrland (UNIS). We also have additional real-time support provided by Dr. Bjørn Lybekk (U. Oslo) and PhD student Yngvild Andalsvik in Ny Ålesund with an allsky camera, as well as CUTLASS (SuperDARN) radar observations thanks to Tim Yeoman and Mark Lester (U. Leceister).

In addition, we are benefiting from contributions in the form of EISCAT radar time from several other groups, including Yasunobu Ogawa (NIPR, Japan), Noora Partamies (FMI, Finland), Nickolay Ivchenko (KTH, Sweden), Anasuya Aruliah (University College London, UK), Betty Lanchester (U. Southampton, UK) and Tim Yeoman (U. Leicester, UK). We sincerely appreciate this support!!!

OUTLOOK. Our launch window starts early Sunday morning. Because of a couple bugs that needed to be worked out yesterday, station time at the rocket range is 0400 LT, which means our launch window begins at 0700 LT (or 0600 UT). The weather has been excellent in Longyearbyen with skies generally very clear (see photos - link on Field Campaign Updates page). Of prime importance to us, though, the solar wind has been more of a gentle "breeze" (weak magnetic field, low density, moderate speed) for the last day or so, but has just started picking up with the magnetic field (Bz) getting closer to 7 nT at this point. There has also been a CME recently released, but it is not clear whether it will hit Earth or not.

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