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As the launch window approaches, your research and testing facilities swarm with a frenzy of energy and anticipation. Under the supervision of your newly hired scientists and engineers, you decide to exercise maximum thoroughness and rigour this time round, to minimise any chance of another explosion.
The spacecraft engineering components and instruments are delivered; the spacecraft begins to take shape, slowly swelling and growing as it gestates in an encircling, ceaseless swirl of engineers in a clean room; there are subsystem integrations and tests of command sequences and telemetry: the spacecraft is transported to an environmental test lab, installed on a shaker table subjected to launch vibrations, installed in a vacuum chamber and subject to strenuous thermal extremes; adjustments are made in thermal blanketing, swaddling the spacecraft as if it were newborn. All the while the countdown proceeds in the background, coordinating and orchestrating the complexity of all these parallel operations, insuring that no-one interferes with each other, that the work schedules interweave over and above and around each other. The spacecraft is sealed in an environmentally controlled carrier for transportation to the launch site; there is constant monitoring of the health of the spacecraft throughout. There are additional internal tests, always more tests. Propellants are loaded on board; the arming plugs are installed, the pyrotechnic devices are checked. The spacecraft is mated to the upper stage, attached to the launch vehicle adapter, then this stack is hoisted up and mated atop the launch vehicle, where the vigil of clean room conditions is maintained; the payload shroud, or fairing, is put in place. Controllers and launch site personnel communicate with the Space Flight Operations Facilty. There is removal of instrument covers and "remove-before-flight" items. Command sequences are loaded on board the spacecraft and verified with yet more tests. The spacecraft health is once again monitored with abort conditions at the ready for any deviations or critical tolerances exceeded. Telecommunications links are established and maintained with ground facilities at the launch site, polls are taken by all launch managers - "Go for launch" , "Go for launch". There are no aborts.
