CIBER-2 IS A COLLABORATION BETWEEN RIT CALTECH AND UC IRVINE IN THE US AND KWANSEI GAKUIN UNIVERSITY (JAPAN) KASI (S. KOREA) AND ASIAA (TAIWAN). OUR SAME TEAM DEVELOPED THE PREVIOUS PAYLOAD CIBER-1 CARRIED OUT EXACTING CALIBRATION MEASUREMENTS FLEW IT 4 TIMES ANALYZED THE DATA AND PUBLISHED THE MAIN SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS. THE PI DR. ZEMCOV IS IN CHARGE OF OVERALL MANAGEMENT OF THE PROJECT SUPPORTED BY EXPERIENCED CO-IS BOCK AND MATSUURA WHO HAVE SUCCESSFULLY COLLABORATED ON 9 PREVIOUS SOUNDING ROCKET FLIGHTS. MAJOR HARDWARE COMPONENTS FOR CIBER-2 HAVE BEEN PROVIDED BY OUR INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS WITH NON-NASA FUNDING INCLUDING THE 28.5 CM TELESCOPE CAMERA OPTICS CRYOSTAT FLIGHT DATA SYSTEM H2RG DETECTOR ARRAYS GROUND-STATION AND LINEAR-VARIABLE FILTERS. WITH NASA FUNDING CALTECH RIT AND UC IRVINE HAVE DEVELOPED THE PAYLOAD STRUCTURE FOR THE CRYOGENIC INSTRUMENT FOCAL PLANE ASSEMBLIES CRYOGENIC SHUTTER A MOTORIZED CRYOGENIC POP-UP BAFFLE TUBE (TO REDUCE THERMAL EMISSION INTO THE OPTICS) A CRYOGENIC STAR TRACKER AND WARM READOUT ELECTRONICS. THE INSTRUMENT IS CURRENTLY 100% INTEGRATED AND HAS UNDERGONE A FIRST ROUND OF FLIGHT QUALIFICATION TESTS AT WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY. A VARIETY OF PROBLEMS WERE FOUND DURING THESE TESTS AND THE TEAM IS CURRENTLY MODIFYING THE HARDWARE AND IMPROVING THE EXPERIMENT S OVERALL PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AND DATA QUALITY. AT RIT DR. PRIYADARSHINI BANGALE GSRA CHI NGUYEN AND A TEAM OF COLLABORATORS AND UNDERGRADUATES ARE CURRENTLY PERFORMING THESE UPGRADES AND TESTING THE EXPERIMENT. OUR TEAM IS CURRENTLY DEVELOPING THE SPECTRAL AND PHOTOMETRIC CALIBRATIONS REQUIRED FOR SCIENCE EXTRACTION AND PERFORMING TESTS AND VALIDATIONS ON THE CRYOGENIC STAR TRACKER. AN EXISTING LARGE VACUUM CHAMBER WILL BE USED TO TEST THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE POP-UP BAFFLE AT ITS CRYOGENIC OPERATING TEMPERATURE. LATER THIS YEAR WE WILL COMPLETE FINAL FLIGHT PREPARATIONS AND OPTICAL CALIBRATIONS BEFORE SHIPPING THE EXPERIMENT TO WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY TO BE RE-INTEGRATED AND TESTED WITH THE NASA- PROVIDED PAYLOAD SECTIONS IN PREPARATION FOR A SEQUENCE OF FLIGHTS. THIS 4-WEEK TEST CAMPAIGN WILL VALIDATE THE EXPERIMENT HARDWARE FOR FLIGHT AND VERIFY THE OPERATION OF THE CRYOGENIC STAR TRACKER WITH THE ATTITUDE CONTROL SYSTEM. THE ENTIRE PAYLOAD WILL PASS THE USUAL BATTERY OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND SEQUENCE TESTING TO REACH FLIGHT READINESS. AFTER THE INTEGRATION CAMPAIGN THE INSTRUMENT WILL BE SHIPPED TO WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE FOR FINAL ASSEMBLY AND OUR FIRST FLIGHT THAT IS CURRENTLY SCHEDULED FOR LATE FEBRUARY 2020. FOR THE FIRST FLIGHT WE PLAN TO OBSERVE FIELDS OVER A WIDE RANGE OF ECLIPTIC LATITUDES. THESE OBSERVATIONS WILL PROVIDE BOTH ABSOLUTE SPECTROPHOTOMETRY MEASUREMENTS AND SUFFICIENT ANISOTROPY DATA TO DETERMINE THE AMPLITUDE OF NEAR-IR FLUCTUATIONS FROM INFRARED TO OPTICAL WAVELENGTHS A SIGNIFICANT SCIENTIFIC ADVANCE. THIS PLAN PROVIDES THE BEST PROBABILITY OF OBTAINING PUBLISHABLE SCIENTIFIC RESULTS IN THE EVENT OF A TECHNICAL MISHAP IN THE FIRST FLIGHT (AS WAS THE CASE WITH CIBER-1 WHICH STILL PRODUCED THE TSUMURA ET AL. (2010) PAPER ON THE ZL SPECTRUM). A SECOND FLIGHT OCCURRING SOMETIME IN EARLY 2021 WILL BE DEVOTED TO ANISOTROPY MEASUREMENTS.