JP Aerospace Blog

Tandem Art

Andy from the UK sent in his vision of the Tandem HL at 100,000 feet.

Don’t it just make you want to go there?!!!!!

Thank you Andy!

Saturday Sewing, Soldering and Sawing

There are days where lost of big exciting things are build and there are days where the team quietly plugs away getting the spaceship parts built.

The bandsaw (and Ed) got a workout. The crew module mockup has an aluminum bracket base. The saw was whining while all the parts were cut. The two more parachute panels for Away 35 were sewn together. The new balloon launch bag is getting closers to completion. All the panels are competed; two of the eight 28 foot panels were joined.
Last but not least the wiring harnesses for the new vehicle controller were solder together.

Visions of Venus

Peter from Seattle sent in this wonderful image. It is his image of stations floating in the clouds of Venus.

Lets be careful out there.

I had a fortunate accident today. I say fortunate because it didn’t cause permanent injury and has reminded me to follow our own safety procedures. I tend to get up close and personal when I solder. I was soldering a board today when a spot of solder flicked up and hit my eye lid. An 1/8th of an inch over and it would have been in my eye.

One guess where my goggles were. Right, hanging up on the wall, as in, not on my face. It made me realize that I haven’t worn goggles while soldering in quite a while. When handling a rocket or a big balloon we all very careful. The dangerous is apparent so as a result those our likely to be are safest  times. It’s the common everyday dangers that bite you. So today I was very lucky and got solder in the face. It probably saved my eye ball in the future.

Tuesday Night Build

Last Tuesday was another night of building and coding. We welcomed three new team members, Felipe, Ricardo and Javier. They along with K’John worked on the roller drum of Away 28. They really jumped in and got a lot accomplished on their first build session with JPA.

K’John and the Away 28 crew.

Karl Contemplating.