PARIS laid bare in intimate snaps

Our space plane mission's bumper photo album

Returning swiftly to the job in hand, here's John Oates attaching the main payload to the parachute:

He then turned his attention to the balloon, with the help of Federico Buenadicha and Jose Manuel:

Securing the filling hose to the balloon proved a mite troublesome...

...but these boys are top professionals, and soon had it under control:

Note the bottle of water, tied to the balloon neck. When this 7.5kg lump began to lift off the ground, we knew we were good to go.