It was a great day at the Albuquerque Balloon Museum. I got to spend the day making PongSats with students and talking to folks about JPA.
This isn’t just any rockoon. It is The Rockoon. This is one of James Van Allen original balloon launched rockets. In the reflection in the glass is the StratoLab Capsule. It doesn’t get any better then that.
There are even a couple of JPA rockoons here! Looking up you will find the Tandem model hanging from the ceiling.
Jeff the Director gave me a tour of the Balloon Museum before tomorrows’ events. They have on display one of James Van Allen’s original rockoons. I didn’t know that any even still existed. It was a heart stopping moment.
Here’s a pair of images from the cluster balloon exhibit at the Albuquerque Balloon Museum.
On the left of the first image you can see a couple of our rockoons and a model of the Tandem. I’ll be there Saturday and Sunday giving talks and building PongSats.
While making our plans for PongSats to space I came across these pics of two very cool PongSats. These flew about two years ago.
Tomorrow morning at 7am mountain time I’ll be on the Michael Shinabery show. If you are in the Alamogordo, New Mexico area, call in and say hi!
If you are out of radio range the show is normally posted online the next day at:
The team woke the Tandem airship up from her year long slumber. They reinstalled the main controller, put batteries in and ran the main engines. It looks like we need to remount the motor RPM sensors and a few other odds and ends but it all looks good.
The Bellavia (submarine) was pressed into service for the space cause. We used her as an analog to test hatch diameters for the high altitude crew module. We also need to build a hatch for the sub and want to share a few components between them. We cut a hole in a foam sheet and proceeded to crawl in and out of it, (ok, I admit it, I was making submarine noises while at the time…).
We also assembled and ran the first round of test on two tracking systems for the upcoming missions. Anthony was drafted into cutting in half more ping pong balls for the New Mexico Balloon Museum event. The parachute anchor reinforcement came out of the mold beautifully. We trimmed it and mounted on the underside of the Sky Pup.
Preping Tandem and the parachute anchor bracket
Parachute mount on the Pup and PongSats
Hatch Work
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