We’re now selling the “Floating to Space” book directly. We’re selling it $2.95 below list and we throw in free shipping!
We’ve also added a PongSat Level Donation option of $500. We’re still working on closing the budget for the upcoming PongSats mission. We could sure use some help.
This isn’t JPA but it is to great not to post.
[wp_youtube]esiUcTsif5I[/wp_youtube]
There was a crew on board and it flew to 10,000 feet.
We started using honeycomb cardboard as High Rack decks. Today we tried bending and curving the material to see what other uses we can put it to. We already intend to slightly curve it and use it as upper deck structures in Ascender inner helium cells. Hmmmm… Art Deco High Racks anyone?
High Rack assembly continued on Saturday. The team mounted the main decks to the carbon frames and assembled sets of the small top decks. We’re also preparing a rockoon mission. That mission is further along and in the code debugging stage.
Alan Boyle wrote a great article on PongSats at the Cosmic Log:
http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/03/6182388-more-space-shots-for-shuttle-fans
We’re closing in on a total count of 800 student experiments on our next mission. The response has been so huge we’ve needed to add another vehicle to carry them all.
This has left of with a budget gap for these flights. We looking for one more sponsor for the mission. We need to raise $3,200. We are going to throw in a full size Edge of Space Ad (normally $4,200) for sponsoring this flight.
Mission Details:
Names: Away 47 and Away 48
Type: Balloon flights to 100,000 feet.
Payload: 800+ Student PongSat Experiments
Flight Date: April 2nd
Edge of Space Ad
Saturday the team was building High Racks. There are a lot of missions coming together so we trying to get a jump on it. We’re starting to build up eleven identical vehicles. Day one was about structure. The team cranked out seventeen decks, six carbon frames and thirteen fin fabrics.
For those who don’t know, this is a High Rack. It’s about five feet tall and carries about twenty pounds of experiments, equipment and PongSats to 100,000 feet.
There are now 700 PongSats signed up for Away 47. Three more teachers e-mailed today that are interested in their classes flying. I think we’re going to need to put another vehicle in the mix to handle them all.
