Author: Administrator

Now that the fame and celebrity of National Geographic has worn off it’s time to get back to work. The three high racks under construction now structurally complete. We added the outrigger camera diamonds to each last night. The next step is to add the backup rigging lines. This is a line that runs along the carbon poles. If a pole breaks in flight the line keeps the vehicle together.

Yesterday I ran a cable planning marathon. The new radio has one connector standard, the antenna has a completely different one. The worse part was that an amp that goes between them has a different connector type on each end. Now we’re not talking just male of female. I mean completely different connector styles and standard. On three of the connectors the manufacturers used opposite designation from each other for the same connector. I ended up calling each manufacturer (nine) and getting a photo of each one. After much wrangling I talked two companies into putting different connectors on there equipment. That combined with an adapted and one custom cable and the system has a layout. Now we’ll see what actually comes out of the boxes when they arrive….

Making Data Cables

Working on High Racks

Inspecting Balloon Bags

Team JPA will be appearing on the National Geographic Channel. Our moment of fame will be Tuesday 1^st April 2008 at 8pm est.

We are in an episode of “Naked Earth” called “Our Atmosphere”. The show isn’t about us but does have scenes of us working balloons and an interview about the atmosphere.

Everyone put your VCR’s in record mode!

A big hello goes out to all our friends attending the Space Conference!!

The gang is all here. Solder is melting and foam board is flying.

Any questions out there for the team?

Here’s what’s on the todo list for today:

-Tape GPS Track boxes (3)
-Finish GPS Track data cables (3)
-Make GPS Track power cables (3)
-Determine controller box size
-Make three controller boxes
-Inventory 900 Mhz equipment
-Inspect 3000g balloon bag
-Test first new controller

The fins look great! These are the anti-roll descent fins for the high racks. Previous fins were foam and only good for one flight. On Away 34 we switched to nylon fins with a carbon leading edge. These worked, but were time consuming to rig in the field. The new fins are also nylon, but have a full carbon frame. They quickly bolt on the vehicle and are reusable.
It took the rest of the week, but the new flight camera are all modified and tested.

I’m getting ready for tonights work session. We’ll be cutting into digital cameras. A little Frankenstein surgery is required to get them to talk to the computer. I tried to do them yesterday, however the eye doctor put drops in my eyes and I couldn’t see the little surface mount components. Those things are REALLY small.

The high rack fins are also on the menu for tonight. We had them all completed then discover they were all an inch wide and wouldn’t fit on their mounts. Four have been corrected, five to go.

Time to melt solder. We will be starting on replicating flight controllers. These take about 18 hours each. We’ve get a start on them at least tonight.

Where else would you find a rocket motor ejector and a sewing tomato being used to construct a low temperture instrument housing?

This weeks focus has been on structural parts. We been cranking out foam and carbon decks and insulated instrument housing for the Away missions.

The Away 35 mission will fly within the next 60 days. There is space for about 200 more PongSats. This will be a balloon flight to 100,000 feet.
Anyone who want to fly with us let me know. PongSats are flown at no charge, but first come first serve.

There is also space for two $100 high altitude ads.

JP

With four vehicles being worked on at once it really gets busy.

The Tandem is getting close. We’re down to running and rerunning the checklists and “ground flying” the mission over and over.

We had to replace the command/control radio on Tandem. We were seeing a frequency shift when it is initially plugged in. It looks like a software issue in the radio. We don’t expect it be unplugging in the field and can’t in flight so it shouldn’t be an issue. However, “shouldn’t” be a problem is just too ugly. We like “is not a problem, so we pulled it.
The team finished off all the fins for the three new High Rack. This ‘high Rack-Away mission can get confusing: a high rack is a type of vehicle is itself. The Away NN is the individual vehicle. As is Away 35, 36 and 37 are all High Racks.

K’John finding the center of a foam disk.

Bob working on the Tandem