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Launch is Imminent

January 6, 1997

The Virgin Global Challenger hopes to launch this Tuesday morning from Morocco in its attempt to be the first to fly non-stop around the world in a balloon. Weather conditions have taken a positive turn in the last few days. The Virgin team has a color-coded status system for describing the probability of a launch within a 72-hour window. It is as follows:

Red = no launch foreseeable in next 72 hours
Yellow = possibility of launch in next 72 hours
Green = probability of launch in next 24 hours

Launch status went from red to yellow on Saturday, January 4th and then to green Monday at 2:00pm GMT. This has been the first solid weather pattern for launch since the window opened at the end of November. The jet stream appears to be strong moving eastward from Marrakech.

Before Christmas, communication links from the capsule in Morocco to the control center in London were tested successfully. The three pilots also recently spent a weekend in Morocco for some additional on location training. In particular, Rory McCarthy spent several days inside the capsule as part of this training exercise.

The Virgin team hopes to begin inflation of the balloon this evening and launch will be imminent between 0600 and 1200 GMT on Tuesday, January 7th.

Check back soon for reports and images sent back from the team!

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