Day 1- June 5th

The first day began with badging and orientation at Ellington Field near Johnson Space Center. Ellington Field is operated partly by NASA and partly by the Air Force. We arrived at hanger 990 at 7:30am to check-in. This is where all the C-9 flight operations are going to be held. The C-9 aircraft was parked in the middle of the hanger with a portion of the hanger on the side set aside for all the teams participating in this flight week.

C-9 Aircraft parked in Hanger 990

We each received our badges and were welcomed to the program. We all had an orientation and safety briefing and then I attended an additional briefing where they went over the schedule and various other things. We spent the rest of the day getting the experiment set up in the hanger. It was very hot and humid making it a bit difficult to work. We managed to get everything set up and began testing the full system. Errors that we were seeing back in Ann Arbor were no longer occurring, however some other issues have come up that we'll have to work through tomorrow.


In the afternoon I attended the question and answer session. There weren't a whole lot of questions, but it was very interesting to hear the NASA guys talk about the flight and some of the statistics and history behind the aircraft. They gave us a better understanding of what to expect as far as timing of parabolas and the general environment of this type of flight.

We left the hanger around 4:30pm. We had to stop at the hardware store to pick up some last minute items we still needed, but then headed back to the hotel. Around 6:30pm we all went to Fuddruckers where all the teams and some of the NASA people were meeting for dinner. After dinner we went back to the hotel and watch one of last year's flight videos. One of the guys on the team who flew last year was able to help walk the team through what to expect and some the issues that occurred last year.

Tomorrow's another early day. The flyers will undergo physiological training while the ground crew will continue set-up and testing of the system out at Ellington Field.