What’s Happening at JPA

Away 32 just after lift off.

The view from a mission last spring.

The final camera test looks good. I won’t know for sure until I review the images. Seven camera, 409 images each all looking at clocks. It’s going to take a lot of David Bowie and Space Vacuum to get through that pile.

There was a glitch in the backup balloon release system. The computer reset when the release heater came on. This means it never got to the release itself. It looks like it was just a low battery issue coupled with the incorrect heater installed for the test. However just to be safe I’m going to do a modification on the circuit to “lock” the computer on. This does mean another round of testing today.

The helium tanks all got checked. The team is really good about marking the tanks as full, used or empty, however, I hate dragging empties to the desert so each one gets rechecked.

A lot of you have e-mailed in. I must apologizes for my delay in replying. I’ve fall just a bit behind. I will get back to you soon.

The laser experiment came through the last full duration test completely solid. On the test prior I used a low battery. Around data sample 200,000 very weird data started to appear. Unless the sensor power system was putting out the energy of Hover Dam something was very wrong. It turns out that when analog to digital converter (this connects the sensors to the computer) starts loosing power it doesn’t die, it just outputs bad data. I cost four hours of testing time but it is very good to know.
With all the troubleshooting Saturday we didn’t get a chance to do the full duration test on the seven flight cameras. That’s today’s task.

You always find things in the full “plugs out” test that never show up any other time. We had one glitch that we chased for a good part of the day and well into the night. When the GPS telemetry system transmits the balloon release system triggered. Now these systems are not connected or even touching each other. In fact they are not even on the same deck. After much very deliberate, one electron at a time troubleshooting the trail of events were revealed. The antenna cable was close to the still camera array bus cable. Power would induct, (yes, from a shielded cable) from one to the other cable and travel to the other side of the vehicle where the where it would induct into the balloon release cable. It would induct through the positive line of the camera cable and the negative line of the release cable. It only happens when the camera system is off and the main controller resets. The antenna was moved and all is well. We’re going to redo the test during the week to make sure.

We loaded at the antennas and stands on the mission control van and did some maintenance on the generator. When the antennas get loaded the mission really starts to feel close.

After pulling the sensor on the laser experiment we found some contamination. We cleaned it up and put it back. We put it through a two hour test run and it worked fine, however it failed during the full systems test. I’ll need to replace it after all. It’s going to be a very busy week.

I’ve just added two more tasks for tomorrow.

1. Replace target sensor on laser array experiment.

2. Reduce laser array firing time.

Oh well, at least it’s working.

Mesospheric Explorer

The Mesospheric Explorer series is designed to investigate the area of the world above 160,000 feet. Here is the prototype on it’s first flight about six years ago and another image with the “hood off”.

The Orbital Ascender

The last system, the laser experiment is just about complete. Today the sensor to array controller interface was built and all the connectors assembled. One more sensor and then on to all the power plugs. It should be all wrapped up tomorrow.

All of the other new systems are complete, however there is still a lot of packaging to do. On Saturday we conducted the last telemetry range test. It was our best results yet. We’ve declared it good and the current setup will be the flight configuration.

Here’s the current systems list for Away 35:

Main command/control telemetry system
Backup position only telemetry system
Six ad cameras with controller
Single horizon still camera with controller
Tandem motor controller
Tandem motor sensor array controller (RPM, temperature, voltage)
Small motor with propeller
Laser array experiment
Spot satellite uplink
Radio beacon
Balloon release system
Backup balloon release controller
200 passive PongSat experiments
9 computer controlled PongSat experiments
Stabilizer fins
Frame
Foam and carbon decks
Parachute
Landing bumper
Balloon rigging, (line, swivels, d rings, balloon adapter)

Universe Today wrote a review of Floating to Space.

http://www.universetoday.com/2008/07/22/floating-to-space/

The last of the new radio gear arrived for Away 35. Anytime a new piece of hardware goes into the mix it all needs to be retested. We always conduct the range testing in the same place. We “shoot the beam” down the road by the shop that has a tremendous about of radio interference. We walk down the road carrying the system stopping every hundred feet. While we’re doing that the folks in the mission control van are sending commands to the unit and looking at signal strengths.

It was a good day to be in mission control and a bad day to be walking the road. It was well over 100 degrees and we just melted. Mission control was nice and cool with it’s industrial strength air conditioner.

Mark and Bob emerging from mission control.

The laser housings for the Away 35 laser array test arrived. We couldn’t resist firing the lasers up. It’s our own Death Star. Although on the mission they won’t be mount with a rubber band.