The bad news is that the rent on the building is going up. The good news is we’re getting a new rug and hot water. About half of yesterday was taken up with ATO stuff and the other half taken up with moving desks, bookcases and filing cabinets so the old carpet could be pulled out.
The new reel was removed from mold. It came out great. The two halves were split and trimmed. It’s now ready to have the holes for the drag bars drilled.
Mark expanded and wrapped up the code for the rocket motor heaters. The main controller was tested looks pretty good. We still need to do some more heat cycle testing to determining the best on/off timing.
Yet another two yards of reinforcement strips went on to Ascender airbeam rib. Only 5 yards to go!
The Sacramento State University crew installed the bearing plates in the drum brakes and made the drum to shaft access port. It’s really starting to look like it will fly.
Given what you said about rent, I have just joined the JPA Association from the “Store” link on your website. It didn’t ask me for my email address or anything. Is that okay?
How do you fund the building and all the hardware you need? Do the sponsors on the website cover everything?
The funding is a huge combination of things. The sponsors cover a lot of equipment needs. Cash for things like rent, insurance, glue, the new transmission for the van last year and misc parts comes from the high altitude ads, Associate membership (your membership went toward a GPS antenna band pass filter), hat and tee shirt sales. That handles about 3/4. The last 1/4 comes from the various contracts we’ll do. Last year we flew two missions for the Discovery Channel and also sold two balloon launch bags to the Navy. We try and keep the contract work to an absolute minimum, it can distract from the project, however the rent needs to be paid.