space odyssey 2010
A short but sad story about the adventures of a parcel traveling from the United States to Austria. Parcel's status: on the road. Parcel's location: between Graz and Vienna
Preface
We always thought that launching the satellite into orbit was one of the trickiest parts of this project. All wrong! The adventures that our TubeSatKit is having on its trip from Mojave, California to Graz, Austria are legend.
Departure
On September 7th 2010 a parcel measuring aprox. 40x40x15 centimeters was handed over to trustworthy officials of the United States Postal Service® by Randa Milliron from IOS. The Detailed Description of Contents (enter one item per line) on the Customs Declaration Form states Electronics KitTubeSat (Academic), Qty. 1, Value (U.S.$) 300.00. And off it went to Austria; (presumably) by plane.
Quarantine
Not even a week later the parcel had arrived in Vienna. To its great surprise it was held back at the Auslandszentrum Wien (AZW) and put under quarantine. A suspicious customs officer mistrusted the above mentioned Customs Declaration Form and issued a Zollbenachrichtigung. Said form requested proof of payment and/or an invoice to free our parcel from quarantine.
System Error
Eager to receive our parcel and not thinking about Murphy's law we faxed the bank statement containing the line that proofs the payment to IOS. All wrong! Above mentioned customs officer took the amount we paid to IOS as the value of the parcels contents. To her/his excuse it must be stated that she/he could not be aware of the fact that most of the amount due is in fact the cost of the satellite launch and not the few electronics parts under quarantine.
Still, paying a fee of € 687.40 seemed too much.
Information Loop
Refusing the payment of € 687.40 meant that the parcel had to go back to a local post office (the one responsible for zip code 8018 to be precise). A phone call to the Auslandszentrum Wien (AZW) left us with a phone number of the responsible customs office. A short call there left us with a phone number of responsible department of the Auslandszentrum Wien (AZW). We could have played that all Friday but both offices closed around noon. So we stuck to the ones issuing the first document (Zollbenachrichtigung) and finally found a competent person named Mrs. Grasmuck. She explained how the procedure of Zollrichtigstellung was supposed to work.
Go Back One Step
The sad consequence for our long awaited parcel is that on Monday, September 27th it had to travel back to Vienna's Auslandszentrum Wien (AZW), wrapped in a new coat of brown paper and accompanied by paperwork to explain its contents and proof its value. All this triggered a procedure that according to the official at the local post office (yes, the one for 8018) has not occurred for some 20 years.