11 May 2012

Love letters

On 11/05/2012, the acceptance of the EPCU S5B area, where MSG-3 will be fuelled, took place. S5B is an hazardous processing facility (HPF) which will be described in more details in a dedicated message.
Once fuelled, each Spacecraft (SC) is transferred from this S5B building to the BAF (Final Assembly Building/Batiment d'Assemblage Final) where it will be mated on an Ariane 5 rocket. The transport between these two places will be carried out with the CCU (Container de Charge Utile/Payload Transporter Container).
The (empty) CCU-2 is now ready in S5B for further MSG-3 use and can be seen in the transfer hall.
Once the SC is loaded onto the CCU, this is the last moment the propellant teams may see their own "baby". Therefore, this emotional moment often triggers some farewell words, ranging from love letters to humoristic slogans as it can be seen below...
"it was not always easy and sometimes you made my life miserable. Whatsoever there was great moments!, For all of us and for my daughter (7 months old), that I missed a lot, after 4 weeks drinking Rhum, show us how brave you are..."
David, Mechanical chief
CCU-2 tagging may also offer new perspectives for anonymous artists...
Finally, the presence of old project stickers reveals that this CCU-2 was already used in the MSG-2 launch campaign (2005). Unfortunately the signatures of the propulsion team and the launch manager were erased by effects of time or erosion...
Anyway, Archaeology is never far when working on MSG project :-)

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