This morning the last connectors were soldered to the Annabel capsule. The wireharness of the Annabel capsule has also been trimmed today. The hardware of the Annabel capsule is now ready to fly. There are two capsules for the Stratos rocket, Annabel en Betty. If the first capsule malfunctions then the whole capsule can be replaced by the backup. The capsule is the part which is recovered and consists of the ETAG, payload, flightcomputer and recovery system.

This afternoon a very important test took place. Six igniters were connected to the flight computer. These igniters, also called squibs, activate the systems which separate the booster section from the sustainer section, light the sustainer motor and deploy the drogue parachute. The flight computer was fed with fake date to simulate the flight. The flight computer ignited the squibs exactly at the right moment.

The daily Esrange briefing this morning was very interesting. They will launch REXUS 6 tomorrow morning and will try to bring REXUS 5 to the tower directly after the launch. This will mean that we probably can start preparing the Stratos rocket tomorrow after the lunch. If everything goes well the REXUS 5 will be launched Friday morning. This leaves the Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday for us to launch the Stratos. If we can assemble the Stratos faster then expected we can launch Friday afternoon.

The balloon for the Mipas-B/Telis payload. It flew around 12 hours in total.

The flightcomputer of the Stratos rocket