On the morning of a flight, all of the experiments, which have been carefully conditioned the night before, are reassembled and installed on the aircraft.  After installation, the checkout procedure begins to insure proper operation.  All of this is done in concert with each group working with the aircraft crew to maintain a safe and flight worthy airplane.  From hands on to hands off is usually about 2 hours.  Megan (picture A) and Ru-Shan (picture B) show the laboratory preparation of the NOy instrument while the ACATS instrument (picture C) awaits load up having already been prepared.  The WAS instrument (picture D) is being prepared by Stephen.

A.....B.....C....D
 

Picture A shows final connections being made on the Q-bay hatch by some of the NOAA team..  Erik and Peter from the NOAA team are shown in B installing the "football" for sampling gas in flight, while the Harvard team access the HOx instrument in the nose in C.  Paul helps install the CIMS instrument from Cal Tech in pictures DandE.

A.....B.....C.....D.....E

  One of the aircraft crew, Ron, switches instruments on and off from the cockpit as shown in picture A.  Check out is done via umbilical connections to the instruments after they are installed.  Cathy and Erik stand at the NOy checkout station in picture B while C shows the NOAA NOy checkout screen.

A.....B.....C

Steve, Bruce, and Marco check out the Harvard CO2 instrument in picture A.   Harvard experimenters Jim, Eric, and Rick (standing); Cathy and Dave (sitting) check out the ClO and NO instruments in picture B.  Picture C shows Ryan, Jessica, and Tom checking out the HOx instrument in the nose.

A.....B....C
 

Pictures A through D show the ALIAS team (Chris, Dave, Greg, and Chris) from JPL.

A.....B.....C.....D
 

Picture A shows a NASA film crew documenting the upload and picture B shows Quincey and Joe who give support from the project office.

A.....B