YES2 Mission Control - Deployment, second phase

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.

We're going to keep you updated on the news, as soon as they come up. By now here in Moscow there is a lot of activity to analyse the data we received from the Foton and the TeleSupport telemetry.

Thanks a lot for following the blog and waiting for news.

Fabio