Midnight Madness

Last night we completed the pre-flight "all up" test for the upcoming ULDB flight. With the weather improving later in the evening, the outdoor portion of the testing was done around midnight. Looking at the picture on the left, one would guess it was taken at either sunrise or sunset. Well, you could say it is both... this shot was take at 12:35am at solar minimum. Since the sun never sets this time of year, this is the point where it is lowest on the horizon, facing North!
The warm shades of color on the hillside were a contrast to the near freezing temperatures. It looks like we are going to try for a launch late tonight, early tomorrow morning. The weather forecast is marginal, but I'm hoping for the best.
Yesterday, I had dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Kiruna and enjoyed driving the Audi A6 Avant sport wagon (6-speed manual transmission). U.S. price is about $48,000! On the way back, I bought some milk, cereal, and a 6-pack of Diet Coke 'Light'... for a total of 81 Swedish Kronors, or $11.29 U.S.
I finally did some laundry using the hotel washers and dryers. The controls are labelled in Swedish and the designs are small front-loaders. Quite a challenge. See Stratodude's blog for his adventures with the Esrange laundry room.