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Success! For the last week JPA, the FAA and the Ascender have been out in the desert. We were issued the Certificate of Airworthiness for the airship. It’s the accumulation of 2 years of work.

The Ascender is the 1st UAV airship in the world to be so licensed.

I haven’t posted any current pics of Belle (Bellavia, our submarine) in a while. It’s just really hard to get good pics with all the clutter of the shop in the background. Here’s Belle as of yesterday, clutter and all.

The TransAtmospheric Ascender approaching the Dark Sky Station while the Orbital Ascender departs for the International Space Station. Make big plans, then do them.

We got the new hatch hinges mounted on Belle. The hatch has changed from a two person wrestling match to an easy one hand lift. Still a bit of trimming and adjusting to go.

Our launch site, infamous Area 42, now has internet and a phone!

Yesterday we flew Away 128 to 111,194 feet. The vehicle carried PongSats, three cameras, an upgraded balloon release system, a six degree of freedom tracking system for the Ascender airship and the regular host of vehicle flight systems.

Anthony checking one of the pressurization pumps on the Ascender 9 airship.

Kevin taking a break while 340 pounds of airship floats overhead.

Starboard helium fill team starting fill on cell five of the Ascender airship.

Travis and Kevin holding their rather large party balloon. They held the safety lines while we did little back and forth flights across the building.

The float test was an intense day, about 16 hours from first power up to locking the door. The team performed spectacularly.

Here we’re walking the airship back to give us some room to run the engines.

Yesterday we conducted the second float and system integration test of the Ascender 9 airship.