Dale Cupido - February 05, 2002: charging up and handing over - I had an early start to the morning! Karen and Mark started preparing for Mark's last Zero-Gravity Flight at about 7h00 this morning. This was a great opportunity to capture the preparation on DV Cam, as Mark was going to the Holter (Russian) and Polar ECG Equipment. Well, someone had to be the cameraman... so up I got!

Soon after they left for the actual flight, Karl and I made our way to RSC Energia, to continue our discussions regarding Mark's Payload. Today was also the day for handing over the SONY PD150 DV Camera, to be transported on the Soyuz. Unfortunately, we could only hand over this piece of equipment after lunch, as Mark took the camera with him on-board.

We discussed a whole host of issues ranging from labeling to our Astrophysics Experiment. Our Russian friends agreed to modify the Astrophysics Experiment... and boy, am I excited that it's going ahead.

After lunch, thanks to Karen, we received the suitcase containing all our DV Equipment (Camera, cassettes, batteries and chargers). Our charger was unfortunately rejected, as it was not the model specified by RSC Energia. So, Karl continued his quest in finding the certified charger, which we'll be getting from the UK.

At about 15h00 I received an sms from Ravi, just confirming that they arrived safely... welcome to Moscow guys!

We ended our meeting at about 17h00 and afterwards we met Barak and Ravi at the Marriott Hotel where they'll be staying a couple days. We're hosting them in Star City.