The mission date is rushing toward us and the team is flying. We’ve ramped up to eighteen hour days, seven days a week. We originally though we were flying this mission is July, but we had a big schedule slip forward and we’re only days away.
Not only are these the most sophistication vehicles we’ve flown, we are flying three of them. On top of that we’re launching them all in a thirty minute time slot.
The team has really risen to the occasion. There’s still a big push to go. I’m shooting for a personnel best on this one.
Well, it’s about midnight and the flight systems have been installed on Away 36. The two GPS antennas are on as well as the controller and video antennas. One more antenna, two video cameras and the primary experiment to go. It’s getting close.
Away 36 will be the lead vehicle in the triple launch. Time for sleep…..
I went back and installed the I/0 wire harness, (handles the balloon release and heaters). OK, I’m really leaving now.
In the movie Core the computer geek hero (yes he was the hero) says at one point, “My Kung Fu is strong”.
That’s exactly how I felt yesterday. I wasn’t really designing a new circuit. I was was locked in a ‘to the death’ martial arts struggle. Each component threw obstacle in the way and fixes impacted other components. This board reads many very small, (and I do mean small) voltages off a customers experiment then notes the direction of the sensor. It takes the data and writes it to a memory stick and fires off a copy with a short range wireless serial port to another computer.
I would give a karate chop and layout one solution only to find that design fought back with a “manufacture stopped making that components six months ago” kick. Thinking fast I ducked with the replacement part, but I got nailed by USB interface and A/D converted pushing me over my power budget.
Normally I would spend a couple of weeks designing, then prototype and test one then build up the flight article. However with the schedule I had yesterday to design it, today to build two and tomorrow to write the software for it.
Late last night it all came together. As long as the Saturday part deliverys really make it, all will be well. My Kung Fu is strong.
I wonder if I could recruit David Carridine?
The book about all of this will be going to press any moment now. The publisher Apogee Books, got some feed back and decided to change the subtitle. It’s now “Floating to Space, The Airship To Orbit Program”. It should hit the book stores in May.
Check it out
Apogee still has the old title shown on the website, but with that one excpetion the cover looks the same.
The past few days we’ve been building up telemetry systems. These will handle command and control for Away 35,36 and 37. In addition they also provide backup GPS position data.
Plug and play has yet to reach space technology. Every “plug” is a custom cable, and “play” is trying to get all these systems to talk to each other. A little hair pulling and I’m sure all will be well….
The new antennas have arrived. Obi-Wan’s line leaped into my brain when I saw the huge shipping boxes. We named them Death Star One and Two.
The blog was hacked big time. About 20 pages of hidden links to pharmacy companies were embedded in the background and headers. We’ll be making changes and doing upgrades over the next few days. You may notice some changes as we work through it all.
We had a huge build session Saturday. The Away mission high racks make a big leap forward.
Among the things accomplished:
Three GPS tracking Telemetry systems were completed and tested.
Three housing for the backup mini beacons were make and the mini beacon installed.
Main structure backup lines were installed on all three high racks.
The last of the ground stake loops were sewn on to the new launch bag.
A balloon release controller board was soldered together and a hosing make for it.
We even repaired a broken truss pole on Tandem and stopped to eat pizza and watch ourselves on National Geographic.. Way to go team!
Now that the fame and celebrity of National Geographic has worn off it’s time to get back to work. The three high racks under construction now structurally complete. We added the outrigger camera diamonds to each last night. The next step is to add the backup rigging lines. This is a line that runs along the carbon poles. If a pole breaks in flight the line keeps the vehicle together.
Yesterday I ran a cable planning marathon. The new radio has one connector standard, the antenna has a completely different one. The worse part was that an amp that goes between them has a different connector type on each end. Now we’re not talking just male of female. I mean completely different connector styles and standard. On three of the connectors the manufacturers used opposite designation from each other for the same connector. I ended up calling each manufacturer (nine) and getting a photo of each one. After much wrangling I talked two companies into putting different connectors on there equipment. That combined with an adapted and one custom cable and the system has a layout. Now we’ll see what actually comes out of the boxes when they arrive….
Making Data Cables
Working on High Racks
Inspecting Balloon Bags
