So I returned back at home already last night- very proud of this big partial succes (a satellite of 8500 meters). That it is a big achievement I could also see from the TsSKB people, very experienced and quite used to successfull challenging missions, their excitement about the tether deployment and the achieved mission was so good to see.

I just missed the tether with 20 minutes, being in the airplane above the clouds I would have had a chance, bugger there was no delay this time in the flight.

Today the others return back, so bit silent again. Than it is data processing in next days, weeks and to get all the interesting tether data. More soon.

Dear all, in about half an hour, the tether will pass VISIBLY over Europe, see fat red line. Within the thin red line approximately (NOT precise!) you should be able to see it. Direction to look at: get it from the map. Expect a thin line about the size of the Moon, moving gently in about 5 minutes from horizon to horizon. If you are on the thin red line, say Madrid, look North, North East, East. If you are in the center (Patras, look Northwest, overhead, Southeast). If you are on upper thin line (Warsaw) look South West basically. The times in this drawing are probably not correct, I fear it is half an hour later in reality. Hope you didnt go home disappointed at 20:20...

At the time of writing it seems that with YES2 we deployed 8.5 km, rather than 30 km of tether. [NOTE D.D. 10 NOV 2007: It is now clear that the tether DID get fully deployed, but length measurement error lead to failure to stop the tether smoothly]. 

What does it mean, how much of a success was YES2? We shouldn't jump to conclusions, but there is some story-telling to do...

THE SUCCESS OF YES2

Even if the YES2 SpaceMail as an end-to-end demonstration failed, as experiment the success is determined by what can be learned from it, and this is a lot: plentiful data has been gathered to learn about all stages of tether deployment and use this to achieve full deployment success next time. Also technologically the project has been a success. The satellite electronics and software have functioned perfectly, as well as the ejection mechanism and the brake control (as already confirmed for stage 1), not a trivial feat indeed for a student-built satellite: the quality-oriented approach (aiming at ESA standards) and the extensive testing has paid off.
Although we didn't break the record for longest tether in space (SEDS, 20 km) we can be satisfied to see that many of YES2's mission objectives have still been achieved. The tether deployment was an innovative and challenging plan with several stages: pre-ejection, ejection, first stage (3.5 km), hold phase, continuation of deployment, second stage, end brake, release Fotino, release tether, opening parachute. 80% of total deployment time has been (close to) nominal. Of the previous list of phases, as far as we can judge only the final part of second stage and end brake were not performed correctly. Then there are the successes of technology development and qualification of tether and capsule, the satellite design, its construction and its problemless operation by 400 students. Possibly the Fotino landing objective will still be confirmed later this week. On top of that we managed to organize that a tether mission was flown again after a decade period of silence on this front. This was only possible through the development and application of a number of safety measures, which all seem to have performed well, therewith demonstrating that a tether deployment can be safely performed autonomously from a highly valuable platform. Conclusion YES2: from a perspective of technology development: full success. Tether science: near full success. Education: more than full success. Tether deployment: better than half. Tether safety: full success. Re-entry: still TBD :) From perspective of team work and spirit: just outright amazing. We are not done yet, as we have a lot of data to plough through now.

Hi people!
Sorry to have been silent so long, but we've been understanding what was going on ourselves.

First of all, the data shows that the ejection and first stage were really close to nominal. The same goes for the transition phase. Later, during the second stage, the tether slowed down. As the tether deployed slower than planned, it reached a length of 8.5 km before the preprogrammed command released Fotino loose from MASS and cut the tether. We are currently assessing the orbit of Fotino to understand when and where the capsule will return to Earth on its parachute.

Despite not having reached the full 30 km deployment, we think that the hard work of the YES2 team has paid off with this largely successful demonstration.

All it's silent here in Moscow, no data from the Russians of Foton, no data from ARGOS, no data from Fotino Telemetry from the recovery team.
Tension is building up...

Fotino is now flying with its orange parachute wide open, according to the timeline.
Here the atmosphere is tense, waiting for the last data from the Russians. We'll keep you updated!

we kijken!!!!

Hi people!
Fotino is now released and the tether has been cut, according to the timeline. We will have confirmation of the deployment on the next passage, at 10:48 MDT, 09:48 CEST. Until then we can't say anything, as we don't have yet any data to confirm that everything is going fine.
Meanwhile we are all waiting here for 11:00 MDT, 10:00 CEST. The expected landing time of Fotino.

Cross your fingers, half a hour to go!

Hey guys,

till now everything sounds fantastic.

I gave the YES2 presentation, here at IAC in India, about 1,5 hours ago.

So thanks for deploying the tether right at the time of the presentation :-)

Patrick *keepingfingercrossed*

As expected, we just received the Telemetry from Foton: YES2 is now deploying the second stage!
Before starting, the holding phase was nominal, with the tether held at 3380 m.

YES2 is deploying now, the landing is coming!