Thank you, Joshua.
We’re here with Cesar Garcia, the program manager for Solar Orbiter.
Thank you for coming over and talking to us, and congratulations.
Thank you very much.
This is a very good moment.
Yeah, tell me a little bit about the moment.
Just a few minutes ago where you made the announcement.
Yeah, there’s always a bit of tension before you get the signal, and we got the signal
of the spacecraft pretty quickly, and that’s a good sign.
And then we had to deploy, uh, point to the Sun and deploy the solar arrays.
Then, there was a switchover of the antennas and it took a little bit longer to receive
the information that the solar array had fully deployed.
Uh, so we were a bit tense.
Then we got the confirmation; and once you get that confirmation, then it’s like the
water is calm, and then you start becoming not only, let’s say, confident but extremely
happy.
And then there’s the moment when you start hugging people around because this is the
moment of so many years of work, like Tim (Dunn) was saying before.
And we are on the way to the Sun — go Solar Orbiter.
It’s a fantastic moment, and it’s really something unique, if I may say.
And, and you may.
And it was certainly capped with a lot of celebrations.
I saw you hugging a lot of people in the room, a lot of handshakes.
Going back to the beginning of the launch, where we launched right at 11:03 eastern time,
from right here at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, um, what was launch like for
you as you kind of, uh, experienced that here inside the Mission Directors Center?
Well, I have told people that I abandoned post.
Normally, I sort of stay on post continuously throughout the launch but after L-minus 15
seconds where we cannot hold anymore, so I actually picked up the phone and called our
colleagues at ESA so that I could still have contact with them on the phone, and we run
out to see the launch, and it’s a fantastic experience.
First you see the night is nice lit by the rocket, and then like 15 seconds later, you
start feeling — not hearing, but feeling the rocket roar.
And then you see all the dreams and the expectations going up in the sky.
And it was a very clear sky; we could see for very many seconds, going south, southeast,
and, um, I don’t know — it is difficult for me to describe it but it’s like, well,
we’re unstoppable.
You get that feeling, right?
I love that you actually got up, got on the phone, so that you could stay connected, and
got outside to see the launch because that is one of the most amazing things for folks
who live here, who get to see these launches, but even those who travel here from long distances
to watch it is a very unique experience.
Yeah, yeah, yeah … it is, I mean, we’ve been here for a few months, we’ve been able
to see some other launches before, but nothing compares to actually seeing yours, when your
spacecraft is going up.
And then you see, as I said, the dreams and
the expectations of so many people going up with a, with a rocket, and with a spacecraft
in this case.
And it was fantastic to see it up, and then it was, of course, very interesting to follow
the trajectory through the quite moments during the coasting phase and then the execution
of the end when there is, you know, the separation and you start getting the good signs that
separation was adequate, that the trajectory was adequate, that we had acquired the signal,
and eventually that we have positive power on the spacecraft.
Now the spacecraft is safe, it’s pointing to the Sun, and it’s quite robust now to
the next days where we’ll start operating the various deployables and some systems.
Right, very good, and so you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you, certainly, no doubt,
and probably the tough part of spaceflight is over, but now a couple years before the
science starts, right?
Yeah, well, uh, the first few days are critical — we do the basic deployments and the basic
tests.
Then, during February, we will do, again, a complete checkout of all the systems, and
slowly we will start switching on the instruments.
We will be making sure that the instruments are operational, that they can as well change
modes of operation and so on.
And we expect to finalize this phase of testing uh, in June — end of June.
However, we can, some of the instruments will start measuring immediately, some of the instruments
will wait a bit longer, until the volatiles and the water will evaporate or separate from
the spacecraft.
Uh, but yeah, in three months we will be able to start taking science data.
It’s exciting.
That early?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, we always say, well, we want to wait for (inaudible) until the (inaudible) gets
closer.
But I think our scientists will not wait.
Uh, they will start immediately to take, uh, data, and I’m sure will start very early
to learn from the Sun.
Fire up those instruments, you gotta point it at the Sun.
Let’s start getting some data, right?
Absolutely.
Nail: Well, you’re going to leave here, certainly, uh, a changed person, right, because
I believe that you’ve got some kind of tattoo.
Oh, yeah — I can show this.
It’s a Solar Orbiter temporary tattoo.
It’s a painless tattoo, and I think I’ll wear it with pride.
Very good.
Don’t wash it off — for a long time.
Well, I might have to take a shower one of these days.
Well, certainly your spacecraft is going to leave quite the imprint on our scientific
community, as we, we’re very excited to get that data back, and learn a lot more about
the star that keeps us alive.
Yeah, I think this is the purpose of this mission; it’s the purpose of other missions
before and of missions that will come.
It’s the purpose of ground instrumentation, which is, uh, also, uh, investigating the
Sun.
And I think it’s a growing community; space weather is becoming very strong.
We will need to understand our star much better so that we can support our infrastructure
but also astronauts as they go deeper into the solar system.
So this is a growing field.
Absolutely.
Cesar Garcia, program manager for Solar Orbiter.
It’s my pleasure to speak with you tonight.
It’s good to see you again.
Congratulations.
Thank you.