Author: Administrator

After the motor detonations on test 17 and 18 we build a new MHD generator. This one was designed to handle larger rocket motors. We did the first test tonight. Test 19 went great. Lots of power and lots of data. However, (there’s always a however) when we disassembled the unit after the firing we found cracks all through the ceramic.  We always expect to see a few little crack due to thermal shock. The unit’s core temperature  goes from ambient to 2000 degrees F in about a second.  This time the unit was ruined, cracks everywhere going clean through. We start building the next unit tomorrow, but this time out of porcelain.

courtesy of www.hybridblimp.net

When the motor on test 17 exploded I thought it was just an old motor. When the motor on test 18 also exploded I dug in and figured it out.  These tests were the first to use a larger motor with the Mini MHD Generator. The back pressure from the restricted flow through the generator caused the motors to fail. Add another data point in MHD design.

I never knew just how a big of a bang a ‘D’ motor can make when it really lets go!

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The Sacramento chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is holding a PongSat Contest. The contest is open to 7th and 8th grade science classes in the Sacramento area. The PongSat mission to be flown next March is open to anyone on Earth.  We have space for approximately 600 PongSat student experiments. This will be a balloon flight to the edge of space.

PongSat contest flyer 2010-11

In response to a question below, here is what’s inside the orbital Ascender. Specifically it’s not a single balloon but a array of lifting cells.

This drawing is from the book “Floating to Space,  The Airship to Orbit Program”. If you don’t have a copy get yourself to the front page of the JPA site, click on the picture of the book in the upper left corner and buy one!

The second image shows the things you only see in the slow motion replay. It’s a frame from the moment of ignition. Next time I won’t be putting the expensive HD camera there!

I just did test firing number 15 of the mini MHD generator. This thing is really starting to work. The out put on test 15 was 50% higher than 14 and 14 was pretty good. This was another big change in the electrodes. Same shape as in test 14 but with a lot more surface area.

I’m going to try and get another run in tonight. Check back in about an hour to see how it went.

Our other company Sand Brick Technologies got a great article at GizMag blog.

Sandbag 2.0 – meet the Sand Brick

Sell sandbags,  build spaceships.

Drew spent the all day Saturday decking out the interior of the crew module mock up. He made great progress on the lighting and the monitor placement. We’re experimenting with “wrap around” monitors on the interior.  The idea is to give you complete panorama view without the heavy windows. Each monitor can also be re-tasked for any of dozens of exterior cameras.  We do still intend to have two  small windows for a reality check.

We fired test 14 of the Mini MHD generator yesterday. The results have back and forth but this one was a solid leap ahead. It shows a 30% increase in base voltage over test 13.

The Electrodes