While I didn't actually WANT us to lose contact with the spacecraft, we've kind of been expecting it; the battery has been on its last legs for awhile. However, I heard an almost audible sigh of relief from most of the team at having a chance to get caught up. To get papers written. To actually LOOK at some of the huge quantity of data that have come down during this mission. To take a day off to get a haircut, or our teeth cleaned, or the oil changed in the car.

Personally, I was finally able to put up the Web page for the Europa project that I had promised would be up in May! Not all of the delay was my fault (couldn't put a page on a computer if I didn't have access), but I was feeling guilty over not having gotten it done before. Now it's up, with most of the info on it, and I was even able to make it self-contained so that it can be moved, lock, stock and gif files to another server. (The one it's currently on can't handle all the traffic we're expecting.)

This has been an incredible project and taking a few minutes to step back and put it in perspective has helped. We get so caught up in the nuts and bolts of putting commands together, testing commands, thinking of new experiments we want to try, that we loose the big picture, the wonder of what we've accomplished this summer and over the last three years. What an amazing experience!