National Aeronautics and Space Administration

After all of the excitement, things are totally quiet again. It’s sort of freaky! SHI is closed and everyone has gone home to celebrate Obon, which is a big Japanese holiday where people celebrate their ancestors. Everything is closed, not just the lab – all of the factories and business are dark and silent, too.

Things will be quiet for a few more days, until the holiday is over. I get a little time to myself, to rest and relax and think about my “ancestors” (like Astro-E). Maybe I’ll catch up on my reading. But when everyone gets back, it’s time to leave!

My days here at SHI are quickly coming to an end… it’s almost time for another big trip! Once all of the calibration and testing gets done here, they’ll pack me up in another big box and take me on a truck ride to my new home across Japan. I’m pretty excited, but not about spending 20 hours in a truck. I hope we get a few rest stops.

The main reason I’m moving this time is really awesome — I’m moving into the same place that they’re working on my spacecraft. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this forever! I’ve seen pictures, and everyone says it’s going to be a really cool satellite, but I can’t wait to see it for myself.

So I’m really excited about moving… but I’m going to miss all of the friends I’ve made here at SHI in the last six months. I’m sure they’ll come and visit, but I’m a little sad that I won’t get to see them every day.

Today they installed the aperture cylinder. This sits in a hole above me in the neon dewar. This cylinder keeps water vapor that’s in the thermal blankets from getting onto the filters. It’s about the size of a soda can, and has baffles in it to keep the water from going from the warm outside to the colder inside. The cylinder gets installed first, and in a couple days they’ll install the filters inside it.