diff --git a/docs/23_TRAVERSABILITY_AND_STATIC_OBSTACLE_STACK_DECISION.md b/docs/23_TRAVERSABILITY_AND_STATIC_OBSTACLE_STACK_DECISION.md
index ee5896e..2ee31a1 100644
--- a/docs/23_TRAVERSABILITY_AND_STATIC_OBSTACLE_STACK_DECISION.md
+++ b/docs/23_TRAVERSABILITY_AND_STATIC_OBSTACLE_STACK_DECISION.md
@@ -304,6 +304,13 @@ Candidate A receives no replay or runtime authority in this revision set.
 - Stop if Candidate A already passes and TRAVEL adds no measurable value that
   justifies GPL runtime implications.
 
+The upstream T3 qualification passed on `2026-08-26`: exact-source KITTI
+regression was bit-identical to the committed gold result, the standalone
+example produced all outputs and the ROS 2 Jazzy node was discoverable. See
+[`experiments/perception/M49_T3_TRAVEL_UPSTREAM_QUALIFICATION_2026-08-26.md`](../experiments/perception/M49_T3_TRAVEL_UPSTREAM_QUALIFICATION_2026-08-26.md).
+RAVNOVES00 replay remains gated on scan-model compatibility and the GPL runtime
+boundary.
+
 ### T4 — Candidate C occupancy/ESDF probe
 
 - Run nvblox separately with RF-DETR disabled for the isolated probe.
@@ -321,7 +328,9 @@ Candidate A receives no replay or runtime authority in this revision set.
 
 ## Immediate next action
 
-Run the isolated upstream qualification for Candidate B, TRAVEL. Candidate A
-T2 replay is blocked by the failed unmodified T1 gate. No LOW-STEP tuning, new
-object model, camera resize, fisheye rectification, manual dataset or parallel
-heavy Worker job is authorized by this decision.
+Verify TRAVEL's spinning-scan assumptions against the bounded causal
+RAVNOVES00 `lio_pcl` representation, then build the recorded-replay adapter if
+the required information exists. Candidate A T2 replay remains blocked by the
+failed unmodified T1 gate. No LOW-STEP tuning, new object model, camera resize,
+fisheye rectification, manual dataset or parallel heavy Worker job is
+authorized by this decision.
diff --git a/experiments/perception/M49_T3_TRAVEL_UPSTREAM_QUALIFICATION_2026-08-26.md b/experiments/perception/M49_T3_TRAVEL_UPSTREAM_QUALIFICATION_2026-08-26.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7859c78
--- /dev/null
+++ b/experiments/perception/M49_T3_TRAVEL_UPSTREAM_QUALIFICATION_2026-08-26.md
@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
+# M4.9 T3 TRAVEL upstream qualification — 2026-08-26
+
+Status: **upstream candidate qualified**; RAVNOVES00 quality, realtime,
+navigation and actuation remain disabled
+
+## Decision
+
+The frozen TRAVEL revision builds and passes its official C++ regression path
+on Worker 006. The run also passes the standalone example smoke and produces a
+discoverable ROS 2 Jazzy `travel_node`.
+
+This accepts TRAVEL for the next recorded-replay compatibility gate. It does
+not yet accept the RAVNOVES00 `lio_pcl` representation, Mission Core latency,
+vegetation handling, obstacle quality, navigation or control.
+
+## Frozen identity
+
+| Item | Identity |
+| --- | --- |
+| TRAVEL source | `95dc2fbd66a343efd9060c45a5711b6307a950a4` |
+| Mission Core qualification source | `67578f4ce16316dbaa562cba466ca9ab820fa380` |
+| Deterministic Worker artifact | `01cb4954de748d2e23567734a5dc5043ebfa7d1596313c3ddba792fa94ac3cb7` |
+| Worker image | `sha256:7b412020f4d8392d1d1ed1b33beadc44140f0ea8f781e62dd69796042334300f` |
+| Image size | `1,030,088,960` bytes |
+| KITTI fixture | `1,994,688` bytes; SHA-256 `bf272996d5b6d25cc5589e1089137cb20a98b63bd4823a7fea5631b359f6d68c` |
+| Committed gold result | SHA-256 `8aaacaa57d17a8a2f043c3ea0a0c134d36a3c50da2385f2364ca4eff53ea9b9f` |
+
+The release artifact was built twice with identical SHA-256, copied into a new
+Worker release directory and verified again before extraction. The run used
+the exact upstream revision and did not modify its source.
+
+## Upstream result
+
+- `124,668` KITTI points loaded.
+- Official C++ regression output was bit-identical to the committed gold dump.
+- Ground segmentation produced `70,175` ground and `54,462` non-ground points.
+- Above-ground clustering received `54,462` points, projected `47,311`,
+  labeled `45,792` and produced `185` canonical clusters in the regression
+  representation.
+- The standalone example wrote non-empty ground, non-ground and labeled
+  outputs.
+- ROS 2 Jazzy discovered `travel_ros travel_node` from the isolated merged
+  install.
+
+The example prints `The # of point clouds and # of labels are not same`
+because the official smoke fixture intentionally contains a Velodyne frame but
+no optional KITTI labels directory. The example returns success and writes all
+three required outputs; the official upstream CI uses the same unlabeled smoke
+shape. This diagnostic is recorded rather than hidden.
+
+## Timing and memory
+
+| Measurement | Observation |
+| --- | ---: |
+| Worker image build | `290.528115 s` |
+| Worker qualification wrapper | `1.667882 s` |
+| Sealed in-container qualification section | `617 ms` |
+| C++ bit-regression wall time | `0.04 s` |
+| C++ bit-regression maximum RSS | `39,504 KiB` |
+| Reported TGS time | `11.168 ms` |
+| Reported AOS range-map / clustering / post stages | `3 / 6 / 1 ms` |
+
+These numbers are promising but are not Mission Core realtime acceptance. They
+cover one native KITTI scan and include neither RAVNOVES00 causal support
+assembly nor pose transforms, camera arbitration, costmap publication or full
+graph load.
+
+## Sealed evidence
+
+Worker output root:
+
+`D:\NDC_MISSIONCORE\runtime\results\m49-t3-travel\upstream-001`
+
+| File | Bytes | SHA-256 |
+| --- | ---: | --- |
+| `result.json` | `674` | `d3fb582b96f907c92156767bf0186fa565897f593bcfd89943ad6a639c0aed38` |
+| `worker-summary.json` | `824` | `baedc1b292691be50c5ef70169df1ff43f99f0e122f527a557a599a906a90d28` |
+| `qualification.log` | `3,557` | `7dc5b8ecb1cb8ad91fc08edbfcc6ab818e4524e271b0524bb02914cf5f96d933` |
+| `resource.txt` | `893` | `dc5638295170cb1edd9c16e2c4ae9b53a89b22b014d27a847c127d6b9afa541c` |
+
+After capture, the candidate container and one-shot scheduled task were absent.
+Canonical `ndc-mission-core-triton` remained `running/healthy`. The build and
+qualification requested no CUDA, Vulkan or GPU lease; the concurrent Frigate
+GPU allocation was not modified.
+
+## Compatibility gate before RAVNOVES00 replay
+
+TRAVEL's accepted KITTI profile assumes an organized spinning-LiDAR geometry
+(`64` vertical scans, `4,500` horizontal bins and a fixed vertical angle
+range). RAVNOVES00 supplies registered vendor-map increments rather than one
+conventional complete raw scan per video frame. The next step must therefore
+prove that a bounded causal body-frame representation preserves the angular
+and temporal information TRAVEL requires. Missing returns may not be invented,
+treated as free, or filled from future frames.
+
+TRAVEL remains GPL-3.0-or-later and is evaluation-only until a separate
+distribution decision. Camera semantics remain primary for material meaning;
+LiDAR/TRAVEL remains metric evidence and cannot independently declare tall
+vegetation traversable.