June
- "The Endless Summer" Despite over three
months residence in
Palestine, Texas, the launch for MSAM2 was attempted,
but the weather
was not cooperative
June
- First flight of the MSAM2
July
- TopHat Test Flight 1 - first flight of a high-fidelity
mockup of the top payload.
October
- Second flight of a high-fidelity mockup of the
top payload, combined
with the actual bottom payload that will be flown
in Antarctica.
Flight
preparations for an Antarctic flight culminated in
a system end-to-end test in Palestine, TX in August.
Unfortunately, thermal-vacuum testing showed that
the main bearing in the spinning mechanism ("lazy-Susan")
was not reliable at cold temperatures. As a result,
Antarctic flight was postponed in order to fix this
problem.