YES2 has been supported through the whole project by a number of people and organisations. Even now, in orbit, we had some good help from the DIMAC team, which run another experiment on Foton-M3 and helped us understanding the attitude of Foton before our switch-on, during the free flight phase.
They just sent us their last information: according to their measurements the Nadir orientation of Foton is very accurate, so YES2 is really pointing nicely to the Earth, as planned. Thanks DIMAC!

After some true happiness, we are having a break down here in Moscow, waiting for the next pass, starting at 09:16 MDT, 08:16 CEST.

Above, the moment in which the news about the successful deployment reached us

We have the data! YES2 is deploying nominally, already 300 m deployed!
We also confirm that MASS is ON and transmitting data.

In the image the note on which Alexey, from ESA Moscow Office, jotted down the values received on the phone from the Russian early Telemetry preview: speed 160 cm/s, lenght 310 m

YES2 ejection is confirmed by the Russian, based on the MASS ejection microswitch.
Now we wait for the deployment data in some 20 minutes.

MASS and Fotino are ejected now!

Cross you fingers, ejection planned in 4 minutes at 7:46:33 MDT! News about the result few minutes later, hopefully.

 

We have a hint that quite some people are following YES2 on the web, but we are pleasantly surprised by the fact that someone is following us in Alaska, trying to spot the tether.

Alaska is, together with South America, one of the spots where the tether might be seen, as explained on this article on the ESA YES2 website.

Thanks for following us, guys!

We just received confirmation from the recovery team (Gregorsz, Marcin, Anton, Denis) that they are in position at about 100 km NE from the expected landing point. They will now mount the Ground Station (GS) antennas and prepare to receive the Fotino data, at about 10:50 MDT, 09:50 CEST.

 

 We have just had confirmation by the Russian Foton Mission Control that the reorientation of the Foton-M3 spacecraft is completed successfully: YES2 is now ready to deploy, armed and completely fine. All further analysis of the data reveals a perfectly working system. Congratulations to anybody, we are ready to rock!

Hi folks!
We just received the data from the Russian ground contact over Kamtchatka: YES2 is armed and ready to eject.
The system Telemetry is all nominal!