All kinds of work has been happening over quite a few vehicles.
Here’s what has been going on in the last week:
The Tuesday night crew has been knocking out carbon clamps for Away 28. They also replaced the carbon vertical poles.
Mark and Drew laying carbon
On Saturday we were cutting and sewing ten by twenty foot fabric panels. These will set inside the balloon bag under the balloon during launch. It allows us to adjust the position of the balloon. Both sewing machines were flying as the parts were hemmed, joined, (pulled apart again) and rejoined. After this post I’m going to sew handles on the corners and it will be done.
The sensor cables on the tandem were too long. Off they came. They got trimmed, new connectors put on and remounted on the airship.
A wire running near the parachute cannon on Tandem was giving us trouble. There is a eight watt transmitter nearby and the wire was picking up noise. We tried filtering it out, but it was still a problem. We replaced the wire with coax. It’s a bit heavy but, it should do the trick.
We continued testing on the airship’s main controller. One glitch found and fixed.
Heavy duty construction was happening on the crew module mock up. The aluminum bracing for the crew couches was completed.
We completed the frames for Away 35, 36 and 37. They just look like skeletons without there decks and gear. Like a Christmas tree before you decorate it.
And last we started pulling the parts together for the Light Nose Cone project.
what is the “Light Nose Cone” project?
Just wondered if you have seen this super-lightweight crew couch at Transformational Space (scroll down to bottom of page):
http://transformspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=projects.view&workid=EE0A866A-F1C1-C18B-7D3CB327BCAF3542
You probably don’t need to endure sustained 5g acceleration, but it seems you could build a much lighter version of the same concept. Unless that’s what you’re already doing.
And: Kudos to you and your team! Great work!
We use the ML rocket as a testbed to many of the orbital airship technologies.
The Light Nose Cone will be launch on top of the ML. It will a low altitude flight (20,000 feet) this fall.