So let’s hear it for hurricanes, no really let’s not. Our team was all ready to head to Florida to cover the launch of the Europa Clipper mission in Spanish, so of course hurricane Milton decided to slam in into Florida just a few days before. This caused some minor chaos. Our first problem was we needed to leave before the storm was really set to hit the coast or was that intense. So we decided to hold for the weekend and last minute rebook travel to give ourselves a few extra days so see what developed. On Sunday night (the day we originally were supposed to leave) it was decided that the launch would be delayed until just after the storm. The obvious move but that left our production team with a few problems. Since the launch team is local they were tasked with getting the facilitates ready for launch as soon as possible and since the rocket was standing by ready to go that was the only factor holding up the launch. That meant the launch might be ready to go well before travel to the are was possible. We had to consider not only flights into Orlando but the availability of rental cars, hotel rooms, any road flooding or damage and most importantly would we be able to reliably ship our equipment overnight.
After several long meetings it was decided that there was just too many unknowns in going forward with an on location broadcast. That left us with the option of a remote broadcast, so a lot of rewriting of the script commenced. Since we had talent from both coasts of the U.S. slated to meet at the launch site we set about getting two remote teams to handle two different broadcast sites that was local for our talent. I set up the Goddard Space Center site while Pedro handled the site at JPL. I have to admit that the GSC studio was fantastic to work with and much of the work was done already since we had a studio setup to start with. The JPL site took a fair bit more work but came out fantastic. After several rehearsals and tech run-throughs to sync up our broadcast with the live feeds of the launch we would be given from Kennedy Space Center and to flesh out our virtual coms, we ended up putting on a show that viewers could never tell wasn’t supposed to be that way from the start. While being disappointed we all couldn’t be there to see the launch in person, our client was thrilled with how well well could pivot and flawlessly execute a virtual broadcast.
All in all it was an exhausting but successful couple weeks in the face of one heck of a Cat 5 curveball.
