STATUS -- This is the first update since Nov 30, which is when CAPER was launched. Because of the need to make sure that problems encountered with CAPER will not be repeated on RENU2, personnel at the Andøya Space Center and at NASA Wallops Flight Facility spent long hours on Monday and Tuesday, sorting through any and all information they could gather to understand the situation. The good news for us is that we were given the green light to launch as of Wednesday morning (Dec 2). As always (well, almost always) there is bad news, which is that the winds were so strong in Andenes that it was impossible to even elevate the rocket, at least early in the morning. The "ground" winds did eventually calm down, but the high altitude winds still were uncooperative and we never really had a chance to launch on the 2nd. The consolation prize is that we also did not quite get the auroral conditions that we are looking for, so no bad feelings. It was nice to have had some partly cloudy skies overhead here (as opposed to totally clouded over), so we did get to see aurora at times.

Winds (and rain and snow and sleet) have continued to be a problem at the rocket range, though they have settled down here in Longyearbyen. Driving out to KHO is no longer "white knuckle status", which is nice. There is still enough wind and new snow to make the ride in the beltwagon as fun as ever, though.

Anyway, because the forecast in Andenes was for gale-force winds (30-40 mph) on Thursday, we decided that it made no sense to try to launch and "scrubbed" on Wednesday afternoon, keeping our hopes high for today (Friday). Not too surprisingly, winds have continued to be 30-40 mph today and so we have spent another day twiddling our thumbs (I have huge blisters, now).

OUTLOOK -- As always, we are optimistic! Actually, the forecast says that the winds in Andenes should decrease dramatically by tomorrow morning. The solar wind is quite average right now, which is good enough for us - we don't need exceptional conditions for our science goals. Even better news is that we will be getting increased activity due to an active region moving to a more favorable position on the sun AND the development of a few (small) coronal holes nearer the equator of the sun. These holes emit "high speed streams", which will help. The solar wind magnetic field is still pretty good and the density is picking back up. The speed is slowing a bit, but not too bad. In general, the conditions here, there and everywhere look to be pretty good!

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