What’s Happening at JPA

Last Saturday was another day of bits and boards for Away 35. We modified the main controller’s power harness. We reprogrammed the extra camera controller to take more high altitude pictures and less on the way up. We also reprogrammed the backup balloon release system to take into account the higher altitude Away 35 will reach. After the system was reinstalled on the vehicle we ran a full duration test.

A duller, but harder and very important was also done. The system shelves were completely gone through and reorganized, (ah the excitement of space).

We’re about a four days away from systems completion. After that we’ll be running the full up test. Then on to flight.

Last Saturday the Sacramento L-5 Society Chapter had their monthly meeting at our facility. They had two speakers.  One talked about what’s happening with Lunar exploration and the other (our own Karl) talked about Helium-3 and fusion.

One of our vehicles did a 360 degree roll just after balloon burst. It took this shot while hanging upside down at 106,000 feet.

This is not a JPA photo, but I would like it to be. This is what I want to see out the window.

Taken by the Cassini Spacecraft, it shows Alpha Centauri seen from the rings of Saturn. I must go and see that scene with my own eyes.

The underside of one arm of the 175 foot Ascender airship.

It’s not “No bucks, No Buck Rogers”.

It’s “No work, No Kirk”.

The last week we have were really cranking. Lots of little things that really add up. Here’s the list:

We’re finally getting a handle on the range issue for the telemetry system. We got a clean doubling of the range last Saturday.

New insulated housing for the main controller, the sensor controller and addition camera controller were made.

We’re 80% complete on the new sensor controller.

Two sensor daughter boards are complete except for waiting for an IC from digikey and two 680k resistors I need to pick up today.

We built a second antenna stand for our second 900mhz dish antenna.

The new camera controller is complete. We also converted another fuji camera over to computer control. Last night we tested the camera system. All is good. This week we’ll be conducting the full duration test.

Bob was VERY excited about the new mission control logging form for the experiments Away 35 will carry, (note heavy sarcasm).

We reset the transmission rate on the backup GPS telemetry system to every 15 seconds. The new transmitter uses less power and it transmits at higher power. I love high performance gear. The system was transmitting every 30 seconds.

We found a broken trace on a sensor board on Tandem and repaired it.

Two older systems got broken down for parts, we use all of the buffalo.

Plus some mundane tasks that keep it all going; The filters is the dust removal systems were cleaned, a big rack was cleaned out and the far corner of the shop was rearranged to make more room.

And lastly the Bellavia was taken off the woobley wheels she was on and placed on proper stands.

I’ll be on the Space Show radio program today. I’ll be on from 2:00pm till 3:30pm Pacific Time.

I’ll blog during the show and let you know how it’s going. To listen on the web goto:

http://www.thespaceshow.com/

I almost fell off my chair. NASA has a copy of “Floating to Space” at their headquarters library.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/find/newbooks.htm

Thanks guys!

Away 35 and the Tandem airship are the two mission currently on deck. We’re still working out the team scheduling for Away 35. We expect to get it in the air very soon. As you’ve read, we’ve been spending the time banging our collective heads trying to squeeze more range out of the command telemetry system. We’ve been also putting the finishing touches on the new data gathering/logging system. The first experiment to use the data gather/logger will a drag management system for the Ascender airship. No drag will be managed on Away 35. It will just be a shake down of the system running at 120,000 feet.

Tandem has had a few modifications. The performance of the transmitting video has been very poor on the last few away missions. Upon inspection it looks like this gear has spend way too much time at altitude (over 20 flights to 100,000 feet) and it needs to be replaced. However, that’s not going to happen until next years budget, so the system and it’s four camera heads were pulled. The three pound weight saving will be taken up my an additional recording video camera. This also allowed us to move the backup GPS telemetry system to the spot where the video transmitter was. That solves an intermittent problem we were having with that system causing interference with the circuit on the parachute cannon.

Here’s a few images taken above 100,000 feet on a JPA mission sometime ago.