...that's Audrey Nice quoted in Ananova and other places.
They were ready to go. After a first and a second delay, they went.
Kosmos 3M Booster Carries Six Satellites to Earth Orbit (Jim Banke, space.com, 27 September 2003.)
Disaster aid satellites launched (BBC News, 27 September 2003.)
I had a pretty good view of the launch via a projector screen showing the Eutelsat broadcast sent up from Plesetsk. From six this morning we watched, eating pastries and drinking tea and coffee while standing in a lecture hall on the University of Surrey campus, surrounded by a couple of hundred people: SSTL staff, families, and associates.
Afterwards they broke out the bucks fizz. Latest news on the launch is available from SSTL.
Once in correct orbits, commissioning the three disaster-monitoring satellites will take some time; the UK-DMC satellite will be the third of the satellites to be made operational. But it's what's on the UK-DMC that could really matter.
Space Net - Space no longer final frontier for Cisco Internet gear (Cisco Newsroom, 26 September 2003.)
Siberia and Silicon Valley: we launched an American IP router from a Russian ICBM site.
An unusual encounter this afternoon while standing in the sun in Kensington Gardens: a small Indian gentleman, perhaps mid-fifties and wearing a baseball cap to protect his pate, walked up to me and requested directions, which I then provided.
He then looked at me. He told me that I had very strong silent energy, and strong focus, and that he could see it in my eyes. He claimed to be a psychic healer, and that that was how he saw these things. He remarked upon my eyes several more times; a little unnerving, as he is far from the first to do so.
What else could I do but respond with "thankyou" several times, and later ponder this event?