Working at the EPCU

Since the start of the campaign, our working place in CSG is at the EPCU S5C (Ensemble de Préparation de la Charge Utile). The left "reddish" wing of this large building (see below) accommodates our offices. EPCU contains also airlocks and clean rooms where the MSG spacecraft is being prepared/tested (left "white tower"). MSG will be moved later on to the right "white tower" or S5B, a dedicated area for the hazardous fueling operation, before the transfer to the BAF (Batiment d'Assemblage Final) to be mated on the Ariane 5 rocket.
To be precise, S5C is divided in 2 areas, North and South, to support two launch campaigns in parallel. This proves to be very useful for dual launch as it it the case for our ArianeV207 flight (launch of MSG-3 and EchoStar spacecrafts). MSG is accommodated in the North part, while EchoStar, a US telecom satellite, will be in the South part when it will arrive by my mid May at the EPCU.

Credits Arianespace/CNES/ESA: An overall view of the CSG EPCU facilities

After having arranged all the offices (furniture, Internet connections...), and even the coffee corner, we are now fully operational. Working days start at 7:00 am for most of us and end at around 18:00.
We hold since two weeks our daily meeting at 9:00 am with all parties: EUMETSAT, ESA, Thales and our CSG colleagues. Below is a picture of our today's daily. (we could not took it earlier before the MSG-3 flag was properly installed :-)

These are in facts long days but all teams are very motivated, cooperative and working hard.
To be complete, we should not forget that there is a new comer in the team:

This is the MSG-3 mascot. A contest has been open to find him/her a nickname.
Toco, Shumi are already taken, any other ideas?