I have just heard today that the Chandrayaan-1 X-ray spectrometer (C1XS - pronounced "Kicks") has been successfully activated. This instrument, for which I did a significant proportion of the the design work, is designed to produce a map of the surface composition of the lunar surface and is one of the payloads on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft that was in the news recently. I call it the space toaster because it's the same size as a toaster and runs at about the same temperature when all the electronics are switched on.
The door, held down by a pin puller for launch, was released and opened successfully. The detectors, now pointed at the lunar surface, appear to have survived the greater than designed for radiation exposure better than we could have even hoped and are also working well.
Practically this time last year this instrument was pieces of metalwork sat on my desk. A year before that it was just images on my CAD screen. Now it's in orbit around the moon. I love this job!
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