JP Aerospace Blog

The mission has had big ups and big down and is still in progress. The three PongSats and in house research missions went extremely well. All the vehicles and PongSats recovered. The later flights of the two vehicles we flew for a clients research also went very well.

The bad part is that we had an accident during the recovery operation. Karl was injured when the truck he was driving rolled. He is doing very well in the hospital in Reno and is expected to full recover and be release in a few days. The other occupant of the truck was not hurt. Karl is in great spirits, but this was out first serious accident in 35 years and it’s rattled the team a bit.

We are heading out again in a few hours to retrieve the last two vehicles. They are pretty high up a mountain  in rugged terrain however, they look very recoverable.

More news as it unfolds.

JP

Away 65 up top with PongSats

Snow, high winds, four high altitude vehicles and a thousand PongSats. The team is rolling for the desert!

The team balanced Away 67 last night and mounted the major system. This one is being preped for commerical work after the upcoming PongSat mission.

It got tracking system, main controller, video downlink, balloon release and com antennas mounted. Today she’ll get GPS antennas and a camera boom installed.

As the next mission gets closer the team is wrapping up the vehicles.  The most complex will be Away 66. It will have a video camera we can point from ground via a live feed. It also will have a ground controlled valve on the balloon. We’re also trying to get a head of the game a bit and are continuing to sew a new launch bag for this falls flights.

We’re trying to get one of our MHD units ready to fly and be firing at 90,000 feet on Away 65, but it’s going to be close. That experiment may get bumped to summer.

It’s getting down to the details: The parachutes were mounted, the balloon releases were tested and the checklist are being written.

Anthony working on Away 66.

Paul sewing stake loops on the new launch bag.

It was amazing seeing the reactions to the Samsung JPA Space Balloon Project display at the National Museum of Art in Tokyo.

About 450 PongSats have arrived, we must have a mission coming up.