After over 14 years of operations, HALOE was commanded to its stow position one last time (perpendicular to the velocity vector) and powered off near end of day at approximately 23:40 GMT on November 21, 2005. The beta angle was approximately 8.6 degrees. This marked the completion of HALOE's last sunset event.

HALOE has been a wonderful experiment that has dramatically increased our knowledge of the chemistry, dynamics and transport properties of the middle atmosphere. We are now reprocessing the data to obtain long-term water vapor data in the upper troposphere. Your science leadership in these areas was pivotal and instrumental in bringing the great worldwide recognition that the experiment has received for so long. The Flight Operations Team was also critical to the success of HALOE having operated the instrument for all these years, oft times on nights and weekends, with quiet skill and efficiency. I must also thank the management and engineering teams at NASA Langley who built, tested and integrated the instrument on the UARS spacecraft with dedication and desire for perfection. I am pleased to tell you that when HALOE was turned off today, the instrument was working flawlessly and as well as it was working the day it was first turned on in orbit on October 12, 1991. We were all honored when the HALOE overview paper was recognized as the most cited paper worldwide in all of geosciences for the period 1991-2001 (Science Watch, Vol. 12, No. 6, November / December, 2001). This speaks volumes about the scientific value of the experiment.

There is one more group that we all should especially thank for their continued and sustained dedicated service. The HALOE Data Processing Team centered at GATS, Inc. and led by Larry Gordley, has shown unusual commitment to excellence and to providing a quality data set that we all have been privileged to use all these years. The DPC team is where the real innovations and data trouble shooting has occurred over the years to give us the quality data set to do the science that has been done.. They have been on the job all the way and we owe them a debt of gratitude.

I should mention that the HALOE success stimulated an even more capable follow-on experiment called Solar Occultation for Ice Experiment (SOFIE) that will fly as part of the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) mission that I am privileged to lead as PI. AIM, which will be launched on a Pegasus rocket on September 29, 2006, is dedicated to the study of noctilucent clouds with the main goal being to determine why these clouds form and why they vary.

I want to thank all of you for your wonderful contributions and I express my appreciation for having been associated with you in this seminal experiment. It is an experiment that we can all look back on and say "a job well done".

Kind regards.

Jim