Away 80 under construction. Away 80 will carry 420 PongSats on the April mission. She will be one of a fleet of six that will fly that day.
Away 80
March 9th, 2013PongSats in the News
March 9th, 2013There’s a great PongSat article at Hack-a-Day.
Unexpected Results
March 3rd, 2013We fired MHD test 91 last night. This was intended to be a “null” test. The next thing we are working on is electrode gap width. The idea is at start with the electrodes so far apart that you don’t generate any power. The slowing move them together test after test until you find the optimum. However instead of getting all zeros we got a pretty strong spike followed by a weird wave. We’re still analyzing but I think this opens up a few possibilities.
Magnetohydrodynamic Generator Test 90
February 28th, 2013We did MHD firing test 90 last night. We have been getting a lot of fouling of the electrodes. Carbon builds up on them during the run and prevents current flow. In this experiment we coated the electrodes with an ablative fluid before firing. The idea was that it would cause the initial carbon to break off during the run leaving a clean electrode. It only needed to work for 1/5 of a second to see it in the data. OK, yes, this means we sprayed WD-40 into the unit before we firing the rocket engine. WD-40 fixes everything right? IT WORKED!
We got much better power output. A new solution always leads to a new problem and this one is no different. The clogging carbon buildup was also protecting the electrode array. Without the buildup the electrodes were pretty chewed through. The spiraling fragment you can see at the bottom of the picture is a piece of electrode number 1 moving at 83 mph (we measured it with the camera frame rate).
Space 1999
February 23rd, 2013This is a big rockoon we flew in 1999. The rocket was launched at 29,000 feet and flew to 72,233 feet.
The balloon drawing is to scale. They show the balloons at max altitude diameter. You can really see how much they expand.
New PongSat Tee Shirt!
February 15th, 2013We have a great new PongSat photo tee shirt at the JPA Store!
Buy one today and help support PongSat!
Saturdays Build Session
February 10th, 2013There are eleven vehicles in progress now in the shop. A bunch of high racks (including a rocket launch variant), Ascender 26 and Ascender 90. Much progress was made on all of then this weekend.
The JPA Store