JP Aerospace Blog

Dark Sky Station Development Path

Building cities in the sky.

Parachute Monday

Monday was spent sewing lines onto the new parachute. It was one of those jobs that looks like it take 20 minutes, but ends up taking five hours. These parachutes are for the next three Away missions.

Before

Saturdays Build Session

Saturday we worked on the Tandem along with the Away 35, 36, and Away 37 vehicles. For the Away’s we sewed velcro tensioning straps on  all nine fins, (three go on each vehicle). We also refinished and mounted the upper decks for all three.

We been working and reworking the Tandem checklist. It takes five pages to turn this ship on. Each run through we get more familiar with the process and we make changes in the checklist. Our is complete powerup,testing and systems go for flight in fifteen minutes. The main this is to accomplish this without rushing. It at about four hours right now. Most of the time was working out the process change. We also were relabeling all the connection so that they match each other and the checklist.
    
Working Tandem       Making Fins

Paul and the Away 35 Frame

sigh…..

Dance for the Children’s Miracle Network

Our friend and supporter Peter Dulude is hosting a country dance on March 15 to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network.

If you’re in Canada this is the place to be! If not at least checkout there website.

Tandem in Google Sketch

We finally got the Tandem rendered in Google Sketch.

Clamps and Slide Panels

We use carbon tubes like tinkertoys. This means we’re always making carbon connectors and clamp. The other think we always find ourselves doing is sewing. The latest in the machine was slide panels and new parachutes. What are the tools of the next spaceage? A sew machine, carnuba release wax and a soldering iron…

Jacqueline sewing away.

Michael and Mark making one more clamp for Away 28.

MicroTandem Mission Pics

Here’s a couple of new scans from the MicroTandem flight.

MicroTandem’s Launch Bags

No,it over there!!!!

Let’s go to lunch there!!!!

Shots in the Night

Yesterday was an interesting day all around. The build session went very well. All the new modifications were install on the Tandem airship and testing has jumped into full swing.

We switched from foam to fabric fins for Away 34. We modified the design again to make them easier to deploy in the field. We started building fin sets for the next three vehicles.

It was also replication day. solder was flowing as the spare systems for Tandem were build. Spares are different from backups. Backup systems are things that fly with the main system. A spare is one to change out should there be a problem before flight.

Sewing continued on the new parachute and the helium flow meter was fixed, Yea!

Last night I attended a performance by our new music sponsor. It was incredible. We’ll be making an announcement as we get the details together. I stopped by the shop on my way home and that’s when things got exciting.

A pair of rapid series of gun shots banged out followed by shouts, screams and squealing car tires. I looked out the window and could see a huge crowd running around outside the sports center across the street. I went outside (I know, not very smart), and called 911. Another round of gun shots started. At this point I ran behind my truck. I couldn’t see who was shooting although I though I saw flashes. Police cars started rolling in. After a few minutes it looked like a used car dealership of police cars. There was still maybe thirty people still at the scene, not including the police. I watched for another half hour. No ambulance so I don’t think anyone was hit. There was around 20 shots in all. I can’t find anything about it in the news so far this morning.

Time to head back in, check for holes in the building and start sewing on parachutes.