Two pictures show the assembled Service Module (with its TV booms still deployed) and the MIRIAM Entry Vehicle installed in its flower blossom container. Through the high-temperature resistant glass window, you can see the pod camera.

The MIRIAM Flight System Stack was assembled Tuesday afternoon; spin tested to determine imbalances and later that day mated to the rocket's nose cone. The entire setup was then mated to its transportation and handling adapter and packed for shipment to Kiruna.

On Wednesday the flight system was delivered to the DLR center in Oberpfaffenhofen together with our ground station and other equipment. In all, we added 9 boxes and an estimated 600kg of goods to the entire campaign.

At this point I am happy to thank grocer Ludwig Neumayer Delicatessen (Obst, Gemüse & Feinkost) of Deisenhofen, for the provision of his panel truck for a day, entirely free of charge. With his truck we were able to make the delivery in one go.

Our trusted "Mars Mobile", a 1994 Chevrolet Caprice Station Wagon, finally proved to be too small to haul both the payload section and all of the other boxes at the same time, so we would have had to drive the roughly 100km round-trip twice.

This picture shows the Delicatessen delivery truck in front of the DLR space operations building where the boxes were picked up by the shipping company together with the other campaign items.

ARCHIMEDES is an effort to probe the atmosphere of planet Mars by means of a hypersonic drag balloon, a device known as a "ballute". The project is currently under study, proposed and supported by the Mars Society Germany, the Universität der Bundeswehr München, the AMSAT-DL .e.V. organization, the DLR, and several other research institutions and industrial companies. The probe is planned to be integrated into the AMSAT's P5-A Mars satellite, and to be released from the spacecraft when in orbit around the planet. Launch of the P5-A is currently planned for late 2011 as a piggyback payload on an Ariane V rocket, as it is standard practice for spacecraft of the German AMSAT section. It is jointly developed by The Mars Society Germany and several institutes of the University of the Federal Armed Forces of Germany in Munich.

MIRIAM combines all research programs within the ARCHIMEDES development program, and is currently planned for launch to a 200km peak altitude from the SSC ESRANGE rocket test site near Kiruna, North Sweden on top of the REXUS4 sounding rocket managed and built by the DLR Moraba group of Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. MIRIAM's launch is now planned for October 21, 2008.