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News Archive 2007 December 11, 2007: PR News Wire has posted the following story on THEMIS, NASA Spacecraft Make New Discoveries About Northern Lights. This story was picked by numerous science organizations and media outlets, including AOL Money & Finance, American Electronics Association, Biz Journals.com, Bolsamania (Web Financial Group), Breitbart.com, Earth Times, Forbes.com, Houston Chronicle, MySan.de and RCR Wireless News. Access the story in PDF format here (32kB). November 21, 2007: The electric field instrument's (EFI's) booms on the outermost probe (satellite), THEMIS probe 1 (P1, or THEMIS-B, TH-B) have been completely and successfully deployed (rolled out to their extended positions). See May 16th for a diagram of the EFI booms deployed on a THEMIS probe. Congratulations to the THEMIS EFI team! November 10-13, 2007: Early Saturday morning started with the beginning of deploying (rolling out to their extended positions), the electric field instrument's (EFI's) booms on the outermost probe (satellite), THEMIS probe 1 (P1, or THEMIS-B, TH-B). See May 16th for a diagram of the EFI booms deployed on a THEMIS probe. The deploy can only happen in a certain point in the probe's orbit. During this time, the ground antennae can only communicate with the probe when the probe's location is in an antenna's field-of-view in the sky. These times are called "passes" and indicate when the ground operations team can communicate with the probe. There were two long passes today, Nov. 13th. During these passes first the EFI and operations team deployed the EFIs to 10 meters, then the EFIs gathered data, then the probe sent the data back to Earth, and then the EFI and operations team deployed the EFIs to 18 meters. It appears that everything is going smoothly and the data looks good. November 8, 2007: THEMIS was featured as part of the show Quest (#115) on KQED channel 9 last Tuesday night. The description is below with the re-broadcast times. Illuminating the Northern Lights - Bay Area residents may not get to see the northern lights, but Bay Area scientists are playing a key role in understanding them. Find out more about the spectacular light shows up north and what scientists at UC Berkeley are discovering about the Earth's magnetic field. November 6, 2007: Today is Wedding Day - 88 days, the scheduled date for the completion of the mission orbit placement for Probes 1-4 (P1-P4; or THEMIS B-E, TH-B through TH-E). We did indeed complete the orbit placement for these four probes last night, performing the final orbit period adjusts on TH-B (P1) and TH-C (P2). The resulting hours when the satellites line up (conjunction hours) and the actual fuel budget are very well in line with projections. November 2, 2007: Things have progressed like clockwork in THEMIS mission operations, both figuratively and literally. This week we successfully completed maneuvers that set the orbits of the two 1-day orbit probes exactly where we want them -- no more maneuvers on those probes until Spring 2008! The two innermost probes are, in a sense, the clock that drives the alignment of two outer probes; over the coming weeks, we just have to perform small maneuvers to adjust and tweak the outer orbits to match the "clockwork" inner orbits as precisely as we can. So the orbit placement of the four primary probes is essentially complete. The probe's orbits are essentially ready for the main science objectives. While the Earth moves around the Sun the probes' elliptical orbits remain fixed in space with respect to the stars; their farthest point (apogee) moving clockwise as viewed from the north pole relative to the Sun-Earth line. The probes spend most of their time at apogee. Thus with no further major maneuvers by January, the probes will naturally find themselves in Earth's magnetosphere approaching the anti-sunward line and be ready for tail science. But there's still work to do! The outermost probe is now ready for us to release the wire booms of the EFI (electric fields instrument); we had to keep them stowed inside the spacecraft until after orbit placement was complete. Our plan is to finish that work up before Thanksgiving, so everyone can have a well deserved rest! October 15 , 2007: Things continue to go like clockwork in THEMIS mission operations, and the THEMIS team is starting to see the light at the end of the orbit placement phase tunnel! As of last Friday, THEMIS probe 1 (P1, or THEMIS-B, TH-B) has been placed on its final orbit with its apogee (highest point in its orbit) at an altitude of 31 times the radius of Earth (Re). The planet’s radius is about 3,962 miles, or 6,378 kilometers. The orbit of THEMIS probe 1 (THEMIS-B) is highly elliptical and will take about 4 days to orbit Earth around Earth's equator. Placing P1 in its final orbit completes the bulk of maneuvers for P1. There will be minor tweak maneuvers continued throughout the mission. By the end of the month, we should be substantially finished with maneuvers for four of the five THEMIS probes. Looking down (from the Northern Hemisphere) on Earth, Earth rotates counter-clockwise. Right now, both P1 (TH-B) and P2 (TH-C) are now rotating clockwise and at a slight angle (8 degrees) to the ecliptic, the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun. This orientation of P1 (TH-B) and P2 (TH-C) is called "ecliptic-science-south." The inner three probes, P3 (TH-D), P4 (TH-E), and P5 (TH-A), are expected to reach an "ecliptic-science-north attitude", which means that they are spinning counter-clockwise (like Earth), and will also have an 8 degree tilt to the ecliptic. The reason for this 8 degree angle is to permit good quality electric field instrument measurements. By the end of the month, THEMIS should be substantially finished with maneuvers for four of the five THEMIS probes. September 28, 2007: The last week's worth of activities have gone very well for THEMIS. The large maneuver on Probe 1 (the outermost probe) increased the orbit to more than 53 hours. We're now getting used to the fact that this probe will swing by close to earth less and less frequently as we increase its orbital period. September 21, 2007: Today, the THEMIS Mission Operations Team is planning a maneuver for P1 (the probe that that will be in the outermost orbit of the THEMIS constellation). This will be a biggie -- in one maneuver, they change the orbit period from 36 hours to 54 hours! When they're all done, the P1 orbit period will be 96 hours, so still more maneuvers will be required. All the probes are in an excellent state of health, and as minor anomalies change the schedule, they've adapted, re-planned, and continued on. September 17, 2007: The THEMIS mission operations team has successfully performed the fist axial burn raising the apogee, the farthest point of the orbit, of probe 1 (P1) from 14.6 Earth Radii (Re) to 16Re. 1 Earth Radius = 6,378 km (3963 miles). The team is proceeding with orbit placement of all probes towards their final positions to be completed by mid-December 2007. August 10, 2007: Everything is working well on THEMIS. Three of the Electric Field Instruments (EFIs) have been completely deployed. It took 68 thrust maneuvers to get to this point! These thrust maneuvers lead to adjusted orbits and change in the probes' (satellites') attitudes (orientations) and spin rates. THEMIS is still in its coast phase until the end of this month. Then the THEMIS flight operation team will begin to send commands to the probes for many more thrust maneuvers in order to put the probes into their prime-mission orbits. The final maneuvers will happen in December. The probes now have both numbers and letters associated with them. Here is the letter-number scheme: 5 (A), 4 (E), 3 (D), 2 (C), 1 (B); Probes 1 (B) and 5 (A) (closest and farthest out) have the most maneuvers needed to place them in orbit, so the EFIs were not deployed for those two probes. August 8, 2007: The first science team meeting after the launch of THEMIS has concluded. Scientists examined data from the first substorm observed by THEMIS. They shared their interpretations of how the August 6, 2007: The first science team meeting after the launch of THEMIS is occurring at the University of California, Berkeley. Scientists are sharing their first looks at the data coming back from the five satellites as they travel in and out of Earth's Magnetosphere, crossing the boundary between the solar wind and the magnetosphere. July 30, 2007: The First THEMIS Science Working Team Meeting will be held on August 6-8, 2007 at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory. The agenda is available as a Acrobat Reader PDF file here. Please find directions to the lab and list of accommodations at: http://ssl.berkeley.edu July 28, 2007: THEMIS is in the news in France. Practice your French and check out the broadcast produced by Laurianne Geffroy, which used footage provided by UC Berkeley. July 27, 2007: The THEMIS constellation of five probes (satellites) is in the middle of its final adjustments to the scientific data collection. On all probes, data is now being compressed, similar to the way files are made smaller in a "zip" compression on your computer. This allows more data to get to the ground. The Electric Fields Instrument (EFI) has been reconfigured to optimize its performance. See below for more information on the EFI. The THEMIS science team are making final changes to flight software, the computer software on the probes. These changes relate to a mode of operating the particle instruments that allow the scientist to keep the highest resolution of particle data (known as "Particle Burst" data). These changes also allow the on-board probe software (flight software) to calculate the velocity, pressure, and other such quantities, which is another way of compressing the particle data. These changes will permit captures of scientifically important boundaries at high time resolution and result in further increase in the data quality of the transmitted data. July 1, 2007: The dayside THEMIS science officially starts today. We are looking forward to the many discoveries THEMIS will make during this phase of its mission! June 7 , 2007: As of today, all the booms and sensors on the electric field instrument (EFI) have been deployed (rolled out to their extended positions) on probe D and E. Congratulations to the EFI and operations team (who send all the commands to the probes)! See May 16th news for an the image of a THEMIS probe with the booms deployed. June 1 , 2007: The 10 meter thin wire booms and sensors on the electric field instrument (EFI) have been deployed (rolled out to their extended positions) on probe D and are being deployed now on probe E. See May 16th news for an the image of a THEMIS probe with the booms deployed. May 30, 2007: The wire booms and sensors on the electric field instrument (EFI) will be deployed (rolled out to their extended positions) on probes D and E starting tomorrow, Thursday, May 30th. This takes many days because as the booms go out they could potentially disturbing the probe's configuration and motion. The plan is to do part of the deployment Thursday and Friday, then take two days break, then finish on Monday and Tuesday, June 4th and 5th. The axial boom will be deployed on Thursday, June 7th. See May 16th news for an the image of a THEMIS probe with the booms deployed. May 17, 2007: The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS aired a segment called "Space Storms - High school students and teachers are helping collect data for NASA's THEMIS mission to study space storms" last night. The audio and other supplemental information can be heard and read on the PBS website. The video is available by going to the News Hour video archive page and submitting a search for THEMIS. May 16, 2007: The wire booms and sensors on the electric field instrument (EFI) have been successfully deployed (rolled out to their extended positions) on probe C. The ensuing data proved it was a cause for celebration. Drs. John Bonnell and Forrest Mozer, the Leads on the EFI, were both extremely happy with the instrument behavior. The booms have deployed to the final 20&25m length. All indications are that THEMIS C has now two good, fully deployed EFI spin plane boom pairs. Congratulations to the EFI team for pulling it off!
The EFI axial's will be deployed on probe C by end of this week assuming the spinning of the spacecraft is stable. In the second week in June, after some additional orbit nudges using the thrusters, the THEMIS team will begin to deploy the EFIs on probes D and E. May 10, 2007: The wire booms and sensors on the electric field instrument (EFI) on probe C are being deployed (rolled out to their extended positions) today. Yesterday the doors were opened to allow this process to occur. There will be more updates on this deployment soon. May 5, 2007: We've added a new page to our THEMIS classroom site - the GEONS teacher and student work. Visit this page to see what our teachers and students are producing as a result of our education and outreach efforts. May 2, 2007: A recent NASA news release includes an image showing Io's auroras. The news release also explains some of dynamics of the auroras. Please visit the Non-Earth Auroras section of the THEMIS website for more information. May 1, 2007: The THEMIS probes are in their elliptical coast phase orbits with the apogee, the highest point of the orbit, on the dusk side of Earth. To see the upcoming orbits, visit the THEMIS science orbits page. All instruments on the probes are taking data, though the electric field instrument (EFI) still needs to have its booms out. This will start on May 9, on probe THEMIS C. During the week prior to EFI deployment the science team will be collecting science orbits similar to the nominal science. The team is ironing out small compatibility issues that are noticed during this phase, calibrating the instruments, while also testing different ways of collecting data (operational modes). The EFI deployment on probe THEMIS C will be completed in 2 weeks, and will be followed by similar deployments on probes B and D. April 12th, 2007: Thanks to the unique capability of Cluster to perform simultaneous multipoint measurements, they were able to derive several physical parameters never estimated before for region in which flows in Earth's magnetosphere reverses direction. The data is consistent with turbulence, one way for the current disruption to occur in Earth's magnetotail. THEMIS' ability to make multipoint measurements aligned in Earth's magnetotail out from the current disruption region to the magnetic reconnection region will be able to tie these types of Cluster observations with the entire series of events during a substorm. To read more about the Cluster research, visit the European Space Agency's website article from our articles section. April 9th, 2007: The THEMIS probes are now in their expected elliptical orbit configuration for the coast phase. This configuration is as follows: <------B--------C-E-D--------A-----, that is that probe B will lead with probes C, E, and D following as a "pack" with approximately 100 km separation between them and probe A lagging behind. The distance between probes B and A are around 5-10,000 km. Minor adjustments on the orbits of the probes are still to be completed before scientist can start to use the data from the dayside of the magnetosphere to do science. There was a special orbit on Sunday (April 8th) to collect magnetic and electric field data. This data will be checked out this week. Next week the THEMIS team will send out (deploy) the booms (long poles and wires) of the Electric Field Instrument (EFI). See the March 15th news for more information on the EFIs. March 29-April 1st , 2007: We met with the THEMIS GEONS teachers at the National Science Teachers Association conference to discuss how THEMIS is being implemented in their classrooms with the magnetometer data and to share the 4th THEMIS magnetism guide: "Magnetometers and Electric Currents in Space." Several of these activities have already been tested in the teachers' classrooms and the guide will soon be available on our website for other physics teachers who would like to incorporate the magnetometer data in their classroom. March 15th, 2007: By the end of the day yesterday, THEMIS had achieved a major milestone. All instruments on all five probes are now on and collecting data. The electric field instrument (EFI) booms have yet to be deployed but we expect deployments to begin in the not-too-distant future. The EFI will measure electric fields in space. In order to do this, the sensor is put at the end of wires or poles (booms) which are extended out away from the spacecraft when they are deployed. The sensor needs to be far from the spacecraft because there are electric fields around the spacecraft due to the interaction of the spacecraft with the charged particles space as well as with sunlight. March 14th, 2007: In the past day, THEMIS testing showed us that the probes can telemeter at 64 K bits per second to Berkeley throughout the current probes' orbits. Probe C and D solid state telescopes (SSTs) were turned on again and left running in order to get a measurement without the electrostatic analyzer (ESA) interference. See March 8th for more information about the SST. The SST on probe E was reconfigured. At the present time the high voltage (HV) on probe A's and B's ESAs are running (see March 7th for more information about the ESA instrument). SST is up and running on C and D. Science data is being collected and returned successfully in "Slow Survey mode," a mode meant to provide course data over most of an orbit as opposed to "Fast Survey mode," meant to sample the magnetosphere at a higher data rate. Assuming the data looks good overnight, the team will raise ESA High Voltage on C, D and E while turning on SST A, B and E. Once this is done, this will complete the initial commissioning on all instruments. March 12th, 2007: Today, the electrostatic analyzer (ESA) electron High Voltages were checked out on probes A, B, D and E. All four performed beautifully (see March 7th for more information about the ESA instrument). The ESA probe C was not checked out because of an ongoing set-up issue with the ESA/SST controller. March 11th, 2007: Today, the solid state telescope (SST) on Probe C was powered up again in order to check out the sun-blanking circuitry. Currents looked good and stable, but the expected packet telemetry was not coming through. Once again, SST was turned off while engineers worked on an updated plan for SST. March 10th, 2007: Today, ESA ion High Voltages were checked out on all five probes. Each was ramped up successfully to full voltage and all five performed perfectly (see March 7th for more information about the ESA instrument). The ESA on Probe A was intentionally left at high voltage while the other probe ESAs were set at low voltages for the time being. The science team reports nominal performance from all five ESAs, and excellent science data quality from the ion detector on Probe A. March 8th, 2007: The THEMIS school in Petersburg, Alaska was in the news recently for its role with the THEMIS education project. Read more in the Petersburg Pilot's article in our articles section. Note that Don Dearborn works at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), not in Berkeley. Today, the Solid State Telescopes, SSTs, on Probes B and C were turned on. The SST will measure the flux of the high energy charged particles, electrons and ions, in space. Probe D’s SST was not turned on because the Solid State Recorder (SSR) was full. The SSR is a memory inside the Instrument Data Processing Unit (IDPU), which holds all the instrument data prior to transmission. It was full because it was holding all the electrostatic analyzer (ESA) data from yesterday's testing. Probe A and E's SSTs were turned on, but they were turned off before the end of their contacts. The SST's had to be turned off due to sunlight in their apertures (openings) at these attitudes (satellite orientation relative to the Earth's orbit plane around the Sun, ecliptic), which made their electrical currents too high. By the end of the day, all SSTs were powered off in order to allow maneuvers to proceed. Probes A, E, D and B were maneuvered such that they align north-south with respect to the ecliptic . This enables better communications, stable power and thermal conditions. Fuel usage since launch has been a mere 0.2 kg. Science and engineering data for all probes was telemetered to the ground. Science data is the samples from the instruments. Science data is stored inside the IDPU in the SSR memory. Engineering data includes temperatures, voltages and currents of the boxes on the spacecraft. All probes remain in good health and their orbits are well known. March 7th, 2007: Today, all the electrostatic analyzer (ESA) contamination covers were successfully opened. The ESA will measure the flux of charged particles, electrons and ions, in space. These covers were used to protect the sensitive particle detectors inside the ESA sensors until they are safely in the clean vacuum of space. Each ESA's detector electronics circuitry is tested in flight using an internal test pulser, an electronic device that stimulates the the electrical response of the detector and the electronic circuits in the Instrument Data Processing Unit (IDPU). The IDPU is essentially the brain of the instruments. All ESAs performed well in this test. Later this week, the ESA's high voltage needed to operate the charged particle detectors will be turned. March 6th, 2007: An interview in a German Newspaper, Braunschweiger Zeitung, explores the possibility of NASA EPO programs, such as THEMIS E/PO, as a model for Education and Outreach in Germany. Read the article from our articles section. March 5th, 2007: Today, the THEMIS team aborted the planned maneuvers on Probes A, D and E (see March 4th news) because the communication with the probes was not clear enough. We are re-planning these maneuvers for later in the week. March 4th, 2007: All five probes remain in excellent health. Over the weekend, Probes B and C were maneuvered so that their antennae would align north-south with respect to the ecliptic (Earth's orbit plane around the Sun). While both maneuvers were successful in general, Probe B's maneuver on Saturday resulted in a side tilt of 40+ degrees to the ecliptic. Probes A, D and E will be maneuvered to align north-south with respect to the ecliptic in the early morning of March 6th and, assuming those maneuvers go well, Probe B will be tipped up on March 7. February 27th, 2007: All the probes have now been spun up to 20 Rotations Per Minute (RPM) and are still taking magnetic field data. The next planned maneuvers will rotate the satellites so that their spin-axis is North-South to the Earth's orbit plane about the Sun. This will be performed in steps, where Probes B & C will maneuver on Friday and Probes D, A & E will maneuver on Saturday. This allows science data to be recovered in an unusual mixed configuration since three probes will be "sideways" to the other two. February 26th, 2007: The Mission Operations (MO) team released the magnetometer booms (long poles holding the magnetometers) on all five probes. These booms were launched folded on top of the probes and had to be released to their extended position for the magnetometers to be far enough away from the magnetic fields on the probes. After this deployment, both probes and instrument data look nominal with the Fluxgate, Search Coil, Electric Field and ESA Low Voltage on. All probes are taking magnetic data in preparation for a maneuver to ecliptic normal attitude at the end of the week. February 24th, 2007: The THEMIS team has accomplished an amazing amount in the last 24 on the five probes. All five Electric Field Instruments (EFI) and Search Coil Magnetometers (SCM) were turned on, a calibration of Probe B Flux-Gate Magnetometer (FGM) was performed, and all probes were spun down to 11 Rotations Per Minute (RPM). The mission operations (MO) team recovered all engineering and science data from all probes, too. As the probes have begun to separate a little, the MO team was also able to contact three probes simultaneously using three different ground stations. Probes E, D and C communicated with Berkeley, Santiago and Wallops. All five probes remain in excellent health. Probe temperatures are now very mild because of their new attitude (the way they are aligned with respect to the Sun-Earth system). The probes' attitude is now such that the Sun's light shines on their side panels instead of on the tops of the probes, which was causing the probes to overheat. February 23rd, 2007: Today, on probes C and B the Electric Fields Instrument (EFI) and the Search Coil Magnetometer (SCM) instruments were turned on. The team calibrated the Flux-Gate Magnetometer (FGM) on probe B. The first THEMIS instrument data for EFI and SCM were played out and looked nominal.
The THEMIS team slowed the rotation of all five probes from 16-17 rotations per minute to 11 rotations per minute. This was done so the magnetometer boom can be deployed without problems. To change the rotation rate, the radial thrusters were fired. As we expected, each spacecraft wobbled a bit, but telemetry and commanding were unaffected.
All five probes remain in excellent health. Temperatures are very mild on the probes now in their nominal attitude with sun on their side panels.
All five probes are in very good health. Communications with the probes have improved greatly due to better orbit and attitude information. Probe A was rolled so that the sun is on its side-panels rather than on its top. This will cool the top down. February 21th, 2007: Today, THEMIS Probes B, C, D and E were successfully maneuvered 33 degrees as planned to have sun on their side solar arrays. Each maneuver took about 2.5 minutes while each probe fired 40 pulses on one of the axial thrusters in phase with the spin. This attitude provides better temperatures around the probes as well as better communication to the ground. By plan, Probe A was left in the launch attitude for one half orbit until we contact it one more time with TDRS. After that time, Probe A will be rolled to the same attitude as the other four. All five probes are in very good health, but the team is currently working two technical items at this time. One difficulty is that the batteries are getting too much power from the solar arrays and this causes some glitches in the circuits, which are trying to keep the power from being too high. Another difficulty is regarding the command and telemetry link performance of probes B and C, which have some dips in their signal. This may be due to the un-deployed magnetometer booms on the top of the spacecraft and may go away when we deploy them Sunday 2/25/07. February 20th, 2007: Over the past 2 days the THEMIS probes experienced signal degradation to the point that three scheduled contacts with the probes failed. After recalculating the orbits of the probes, the ground stations found the probes with good signal strength. The probes were never in any real danger - they were just on a slightly different orbit than originally calculated. This injection orbit is indeed quite stable and the probe state of health is nominal. February 19th, 2007: A digital display story has been created and published for the ViewSpace network to share the wonders of the aurora and the excitement of the THEMIS mission with patrons at museums and science centers that subscribe to the ViewSpace network. To find out how you can set up a ViewSpace show at your own science center or museum, visit the Space Telescope Science Institute's ViewSpace webpage.
NASA had a press release about the launch linked from the NASA THEMIS website. Here is a detailed report about contact with the five probes from the Berkeley Mission Operations Center: At 4:11pm Pacific, the transmitter on Probe A was commanded on successfully by the Berkeley Mission Operations Center (MOC) and telemetry received, all via the NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS). All of the probes were still attached to the Probe Carrier Assembly (PCA) at that point. Separation from the PCA was observed via probe A telemetry at approximately 04:14pm pacific, with nominal spin rate and sun angle observed on probe A. Probe A transmitter was commanded off by the Berkeley MOC at 4:17 pacific. The Berkeley Ground Station (BGS) performed a round robin checkout of all 5 probes beginning at approximately 04:23pm pacific with probe B. The transmitter for each probe was commanded on and the acquisition of state of health telemetry was attempted. Telemetry locked intermittently on B because the signal strength was weak due to the angle between the probe antenna and the ground antenna (ground antenna was looking at the bottom of the probe). This was the case for C, D, E, and A. However, the transmitter on each probe was successfully commanded on/off, and the similar signal characteristics for each probe verified. February 16th, 2007: THEMIS launch postponed for 24 hours. Read about today's launch attempt at NASA's THEMIS launch blog. February 15th, 2007: View the THEMIS L-1 News Conference that will be broadcast live on NASA TV from 3-5pm ET. Panelists will include Frank Snow, Vassilis, Dave Sibeck and Peter Harvey. February 14th, 2007:
February 13th, 2007: The THEMIS scientists take a tour near the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, FL to see THEMIS on the pad almost ready for launch. The photographs shows an image of what they saw, taken by Harald Frey. Click here to see full-size image. February 8th, 2007: At 5 AM this morning, the THEMIS engineers performed a final removal of red tag items, performed a final visual inspection and said goodbye to the five spacecraft they've nurtured for the past year. After taking a few photos, the fairing was successfully installed. Final electrical tests and launch simulations are scheduled for the next few days. The project remains on track for a Feb 15 launch. February 5th, 2007: The team executed the Launch Countdown procedure including battery charge of all spacecraft. In this procedure they did everything they will do on launch day ... minus the actual launch! It was not so easy to get there due to a variety of hurdles along the way including partially demated launch tower connector and voice communications which seemed to randomly go up and down plus failed regular Internet service. With the support of various people all these complications were overcome and the test completed. Battery charging went very nicely as did the switch over to internal battery power at launch minus 10 minutes. February 3rd, 2007: The THEMIS probe carrier assembly was transported to the pad early this morning. The attached photo shows the PCA in its transport cannister. Launch site processing and mission operations simulations are continuing nominally, although a lightning alert delayed activities on the pad mid-day today. While we may have to defer first electrical tests until early tomorrow morning, we are still on track for a Feb 15 launch. You can watch the activities live on the Kennedy Space Center website. January 31th, 2007: The THEMIS website at the French Space Agency (Centre national d’études spatiales, CNES) is up and available. An article (in French) about THEMIS is also available on-line. Both are linked in the articles section. January 30th, 2007: See our articles section to find out more about international cooperation on THEMIS. January 29th, 2007: Today the THEMIS spacecraft will be mated to January 26th, 2007: THEMIS will be launched from the same Pad as STEREO. Jetty Park is 2.9 miles from the pad and is apparently closer than the official site. Visit this website for information about launch viewing: Where & How to Watch Delta 2 Launches. January 24th, 2007: THEMIS passed its Mission Readiness Board review yesterday. The NASA Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, Mary Cleave, stated that the mission is a pathfinder for future Heliospheric constellations and thanked the team for its efforts in making it possible for the entire community. Deputy AA Colleen Hartman stated that this is a scientifically very exciting mission and that she felt really fortunate to see it through end-to-end in her term. Dick Fisher, Heliophysics Division director, stated that the team performance in general and in this review in particular, sets a very high standard for missions to come. January 18th, 2007: One month before THEMIS launches! Read about the mission on the University of California, Berkeley site. Also, see our articles section to view other articles written today. January 17th, 2007: Today will be the THEMIS media day - 30 days prior to launch. Come find out about the THEMIS launch at the University of California Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory or at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Find out more at the NASA press release about this media event. January 12th, 2007: Solid rocket boosters are added to the base of the United Space Alliance Delta II rocket. A total of nine will assist in the launch of the THEMIS integrated spacecraft. See photographs on the Kennedy Space Station Media Gallery as well as the NASA press release. January 5th, 2007: The THEMIS Mission Readiness Review went very well. We were given the Green Light to proceed. And this morning, the first stage of the rocket was erected on the pad. The five THEMIS probes are now in the hazardous payload building at Astrotech. All fueling is complete. Next week they will be integrated to the Probe Carrier. You can see them live on January 3rd, 2007: Today's meeting at the Huntington Beach facility reviewed and approved the THEMIS Delta II launch vehicle to be assembled on PAD 17B at CCAFS. The booster will be erected starting Saturday morning at 5am EST.
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