Dear collaborators,

The technical flight concerning the Inmarsat high rate (64 kbits/sec) telemetry has been performed yesterday ( August 29th ) in Esragne (Kiruna- Sweden ).
The preliminary results obtained from the low telemetry Inmarsat system and the images rRecorded by a camera installed on the gondola are summarized below:
i) The antenna has been deployed softly and the system started correctly triggered by software.
ii)The Inmarsat terminal has been turned on correctly.
iii) The pivot of the gondola was turned on correctly and the regulation got the 2 rpm value at which the antenna started to search for the satellite signal.
iv) The signal was found and the pointing routine was triggered.
v) Messages have been sent to low rate telemetry (Inmarsat) when the system was auto-started and when the alignment was triggered.
vi) We didn't get the calls expected from the satellite to send the files.   We did not know yet what was the problem. We expect to recover the logfile to know more about it.
vii) The recovery of the gondola was very fast and all the material is in good shape.

More information and results will be presented at the Archeops meeting scheduled September 7th. I would like to gratefully thanks all the people involved in this very interesting project, and the support of the CNES and Swedish Space Base.

Daniel Santos August 30, 2001