I've been ridiculously busy lately. But a highlight has been working at Goonhilly Earth Station! #space #goonhilly #dish #marsexpress
Time-lapse from just now of the GHY-6 ('Merlin') antenna at #Goonhilly #Cornwall slewing to track the spaceborne #AdityaL1 solar observatory, 1.5 million kilometres sunward.
Taken from live status page at https://status.ghy6.goonhilly.org/
GHY-6 @ Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd.

The real-time status of the Goonhilly-6 32-metre Deep Space Communications Antenna, also known as Merlin, or DSS-59.

In case you're into #amateurradio and have been following #intuitivemachines downlink and wondering just what is going on: yes, its weird, no it's not what anybody wanted, but it's understood and explained and has no operational impact. #goonhilly configured additional equipment for a high quality doppler experiment in the middle of the night.
I am now on an Epic Quest for Spectacularly Potent Coffee. It's landing day at last.
Slightly hazy start to the day. All ready to support India's Aditya mission at L1 from lunchtime through to our first acquisition for #intuitivemachines to run it through the night. #ukspace #goonhilly
While #intuitivemachines launch may have been scrubbed today, it does give me the fun of reconverting the trajectory data ready for tracking support from #goonhilly tomorrow. Locked and loaded. Or, blocked and parsed. Or maybe grokked and streamed. Rotated and mapped. Transformed and converged. Mashed and piped.
#astrodynamics #space #systemsengineering
@paulknightly If anybody has a mission that needs S or X band comms (Ka soon) as far as Mars or beyond (data rate and mod/cod scheme dependant) with a 32m dish, hit me up. A bit smaller than DSN 35s, similar to Madrid longitude, but to be honest those 3m are mostly illumination overspill, the beaches are better, and we're cheaper. Other longitudes coming soon also for 24/7. #Goonhilly
Sometimes, switching it off and switching it on again solves the problem; computers get tired too. This morning we're doing our annual switch off, snooze, and cold start exercise. It helps to shake out any issues with booting, connectivity, volatile configuration etc. Ideally, no issues before, no issues after... so far so good. #goonhilly #spaceuk #housekeeping #linux
Niche shout out time. Here's to everyone who's had to recently upgrade #firmware in a network interface module bolted into the arse of a large, stroppy industrial UPS - or several. It's like they weren't actually designed. They're the system that is used to soak up the universe's spare non-ideas. Anyway, you're my tribe now. Have a great day today. #goonhilly
Flight readiness review passed, the only thing (we know of) in the way of #startmeup #cosmicgirl launch on Monday is maybe weather, but looking OK so far. Our systems will be tracking launch, then we're operating one of the passenger satellites. #goonhilly #ukspace