STATUS -- We began yesterday with a full tank of optimism. Solar wind conditions continued to stay favorable, with not much doubt that good stuff was about to happen. Unfortunately, a problem was discovered during the routine "vertical checks". These checks are part of the daily countdown procedure and include a series of tests to make sure that there are no issues that would prevent launch. The pre-launch procedure starts 3 hours before our launch window and include launching weather balloons, making sure that communications with all of the various sites are working, experiment checks, telemetry tests, making lots of coffee, etc., etc., etc. One of the things that gets checked is the Attitude Control System, which uses high-pressure gas. During the ACS checks, it was discovered that we had a faulty pressure regulator, which immediately put us in a "no-go" status. Fortunately, a spare had been brought by the NASA Wallops folks so repairs could begin (almost) immediately. The bad news is that it meant that the payload had to be removed from the rail and the ACS had to be disassembled, etc., forcing us to miss counting both yesterday and today.

The teams working on the rocket, one from NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and the other from the Andøya Space Center, have done an amazing job with getting this issue resolved (and have done great work the entire time). The skills and effort (and patience) of these folks has been quite remarkable, honestly!

OUTLOOK -- As you might expect, we are very much looming forward to counting tomorrow (Monday), although the forecast for Andenes to (AGAIN!!) have strong winds. I hope they are wrong.

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