GROAN.....Endless Meetings!

Even though the launch went fine, we still have to do all the debriefs, and go over "Lessons Learned", and play various "What If...." scenarios.

One of the Lessons Learned was something I've been harping about for some time now.

One of our telemetry receivers shut down at about L-3 hours due to an over temp condition. While others were agonizing over "What Do We DO!?!", I grabbed my Surefire G3 and went around to the rear of the rack.

Sure enough, the filter on the cooling fan was PACKED full of crud. After getting approval from the system owner, I pulled the fan, slid the filter out, blew it out with canned air, and put everything back together.

I was finished, and the receiver was back receiving, about 15 minutes before the Official Committee To Find Out What Happened came out of the conference room.

They were stunned I had it "fixed" so fast.

And then I pointed out that I'd been telling TPTB for several years that little things like this will cause a launch abort one of these days. If this had happened an hour or so later in the count, there's a good chance we would have scrubbed the launch, at a rather HUMUNGOUS cost compared to the value of the fan, filter, and whole damn receiver.

At least I wrote down all the information on the label on the fan so we can order some spares. Spare fans like this probably cost $10~$15, and are readily available.

They interesting thing is that we just got these receivers back from a "Full Calibration, CLEANING, and Adjustment" from a factory authorized service center!

And they charged us about $1500 EACH to go through these old codgers and "certify" them.

I'm willing to bet there'll be just a few phone calls made over the next few days.........