[img]http://www.ilslaunch.com/assets/Images/Media/ASTRA-1M-Blog/2-The-Eagle-blog.jpg[/img] The ASTRA 1M satellite has landed in Baikonur! The fifth ILS launch campaign of 2008 is officially under way. The ASTRA 1M spacecraft arrived at the Yubileiny Airport at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, the morning of 27 September. The spacecraft and all the equipment needed for ground operations to prepare the spacecraft for launch was carried by an Antonov 124 Russian cargo plane operated by a Russian carrier, Polet. As always it an amazing sight because the Antonov is the largest cargo airplane in production today. And if you think that gas prices have affected you… can you imagine what the one-way fuel bill was for this trip from Toulouse, France, to Baikonur? The Yubileiny airport version of the “Welcome Wagon” flew in along with the aircraft and stayed to supervise the off-loading of the SC. The “Welcome Wagon,” or commonly referred to as a Steppe Eagle, is indigenous to Kazakhstan, which has the largest population of eagles and falcons in Asia. We asked him to stay for the ILS Team photo but he had another plane to catch. Anyway, after the plane cleared customs the team snapped into action to open and remove the support equipment and SC container from the airplane. In just about five hours, we had all the equipment offloaded and secured to the train that transported the SC to the processing facility. The SC, in its container, made its way on the train from the airport to the processing facility, referred to as 92A-50. The main room of this building, known as Hall 101, is absolutely huge – more than large enough to accommodate all the train cars containing the SC and support equipment with room to spare for a soccer game if so inclined! The SC container was offloaded, placed on the floor of the hall, and this is where it spent the night. More adventures to come soon…