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WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS FOR WEEK ENDING 6 FEBRUARY 2004:

RECEIVE GRAVITY PROBE B WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS BY EMAIL

If you are interested in automatically receiving these weekly highlights and other important GP-B mission information by email, you can subscribe to our Gravity Probe B Update email list by sending an email message to "majordomo@lists.Stanford.edu" with the command "subscribe gpb-update" in the body of the message (not in the Subject line). You can unsubscribe from this mailing list at any time by sending an email message to the same address with the command, "unsubscribe gpb-update" in the body of the message.

GRAVITY PROBE B LAUNCH DATE

Currently, the target date for the Gravity Probe B space vehicle to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California is Saturday, April 17, 2004. We are exploring the feasibility of pushing the launch date up to Thursday, April 15th, which is the earliest possible launch date. The exact time of launch depends on the date. On April 17th, the launch would be around 10:09 AM Pacific Daylight Time, and about 4 minutes later for each day prior, or 4 minutes earlier for each day thereafter.

We update these highlights every Friday, and we will post any new information about the launch on this Web site and on the new GPB Update email list as soon as it becomes available.

LOCKHEED MARTIN, PALO ALTO OPERATIONS THIS WEEK

• All testing of the reworked Experiment Control Unit (ECU) was successfully concluded.
• On Wednesday, February 4, 2004, a review of the ECU rework was held with personnel from NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Stanford, and Lockheed Martin, and the reworked ECU was given a go-ahead for shipment back to Vandenberg AFB.
• Following the review meeting, the reworked ECU was inspected, removed from the Thermal Vacuum Test chamber at Lockheed Martin, packaged, and sent to Vandenberg, five days ahead of schedule.

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE OPERATIONS THIS WEEK

The following activities are currently underway at VAFB:

• The reworked ECU arrived at Vandenberg on Thursday afternoon, February 5, 2004. It is currently being housed in Building 1610, where it will be reinstalled in the spacecraft this weekend.
• Members of the the GP-B pre-launch team are returning to VAFB, and the team will be back at full force this weekend.
• The Gas Management Assembly (GMA) has been readied for servicing, once the ECU has been reinstalled.
• The temperature of the dewar's main tank is 1.9032 K. The Guard Tank level is 53.9 %, and the rate of rise is 23.13 mW. The dewar has been connected to Ground Service Equipment (GSE), in preparation for cryogenic filling—the iterative process of evacuations and fills that will return the helium in the dewar to a superflluid state, at a pre-launch temperature of 1.65 K.
• The batteries are being discharged in preparation for their removal, prior to reinstallation the ECU.
• The reworked ECU will be reinstalled this weekend, and initial regression testing on the unit will begin. After the ECU and the battery palette have been reinstalled, GMA servicing and the cryogenic fill of the dewar will begin.

Photos: The upper photo shows the ECU (black box), on a test bench at Lockheed Martin in Palo Alto, CA. In the lower photo, Lockheed Martin photographer Russ Underwood captured the Gravity Probe B spacecraft on November 10, 2003 (Press Day) from a high perch in the vehicle processing room. Over the next few weeks, the spacecraft will be returned to this launch-ready state. Click on the thumbnails to view enlargements of the photos.

GRAVITY PROBE B IN THE NEWS

Gravity Probe B was the lead story last Saturday, January 24, 2004, in two Internet publications: TechNewsWorld and E-Commerce Times. It was also featured in the Tech Wednesday section of Space.com on New Year's eve.

On Sunday evening, December 28, 2003, the Cover story on the CBS Evening News was on the subject of time—examined from both human and cosmic perspectives. The story featured interviews with a manager from Torneau Time Machines (the largest watch store in New York City), physicist Brian Greene (a proponent of String Theory), and our own Gravity Probe B Principal Investigator, Francis Everitt. Typical of television news, the entire story lasted a little over three minutes, but it was heart warming to see Francis and our spacecraft on the national news. Perhaps the best sound byte from Francis was a quote from St. Augustine that CBS chose not to use: "What was God doing before he made heaven and earth? ... He was preparing hell for those that would pry into such profound mysteries."

Click here to view a video clip of the CBS News story about time.

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