What’s Happening at JPA

Saturday was again spent working on telemetry. We had the system at double the range of last Saturday, but we’re still not there yet. I’m not worried though. Every moment invested in telemetry is a moment well spent. Bad telemetry means loss of vehicle, iffy test data, and longer development times. With solid telemetry all things are possible.

We spent all day Saturday working through telemetry issues. We’re still not getting the performance we should out of the 900 mhz system. We set up the mission control van and all the antennas in the parking lot just like we were in the field on a mission. We then hiked for the road with the flight systems. When there was enough ground clutter to start messing up the transmission the work would begin. We would swap antennas, cables, radios, connectors, change configurations, switch from shore power to batteries, everything got a once over. We really shook down the system. After melting all day, it was almost a hundred degrees out on the street, we found a weird problem involving the an amp and one of big dishes.

We’re still narrowing it down, but now it’s in our sights.

The book is finally out on bookstore shelves. If you don’t see it just ask.

The first review also out:

“John M. Powell is the sort of visionary who gets locked up as a madman.”

Ouch, and that was from a guy who liked the book! I must strongly disagree however. Not “madman”, the proper title is “Mad Scientist”.

I’m just back from Calgary, Canada.  I was there for the filming of the last segment of the documentary we’re been involved with. It was a three day trip for what will result in about two minutes on the screen. It was fun. Film people live in a completely different world and are pretty interesting.

There’s still no air date, just “fall”. We can’t really talk about till then, but it should be pretty good.

In the middle of Saturdays build session I took an hour out to chat with Dr. Micho Kaku on his radio program.

http://www.mkaku.org/

Dr. Kaku wrote the books, “Physics of the Impossible” and “Hyperspace”. We talked about balloons rockets and space tourism. I was a bit nervous at first. I don’t think I had my head in the game. However Dr. Kaku was a great interviewer and it was a lot of fun.

Away 36 and Away 37 are now just a memory (and video and data). The team broke both down to components. Systems, batteries, carbon poles and parachutes are back on the shelves waiting for their next reincarnation.

The data is in a bit of disarray. During the mission the documentary crew would asked up to shut down the mission control vans generator for a few minutes. It’s noisy and interfered with filming. We did this about a dozen times. The problem was we weren’t setup for battery only operation (we were running a lot of gear on this mission). We would hold our breaths, break contact with the vehicles in the air and smile for the camera. We would hold our breaths, fire it all back up and see if are craft would still talk to us. Kudos to Kevin for his truck load of patiences in mission control. Aside from becoming nervous wrecks it was a great training exercise. When we have a telemetry dropout as we head to orbit the team won’t bat an eye. I digress, all this messing with comms in flight have left the flight logs littered with holes and artifacts. Sorting through it is like cleaning out the garage, very dusty and you never know what you’ll find.

We’re taking the time between the missions to make a few upgrades on Away 35. Here’s the Away 35 modifications:

Adding the Data system

This is our new data gather system. We need it from the more complex missions on the horizon. It will sample
eighteen sensors fives times a second. It stores the information on a memory stick and transmits it to the ground.
It’s a expanded version of the system flown on Away 36 and 37.

4000g balloon (up from the 3000g balloon)
Test for Tandem: Performance and low nozzle technique
120,000+ foot peak altitude

Additional digital camera and camera controller. This bumps Away 35’s still camera count to seven. The other six are ad pictures the new one will be a horizon shot. If were going over 120,000 feet I want a picture.

No horizon video;  to keep the weight down we’re pulling one of the two video cameras.

Spot unit; This is a satellite uplinked GPS. It flew before on Away 36.

Away 36 came down on hard stone on a sadle between two ridge lines.

Recovered!

Photographs by Natalie Vollrath 

View from the Away36 landing site.

Bob doing his happy Captain Morgan at the Away 37 landing site.

Here’s a few images from the mission:

I’m pretty jazzed. Two vehicles flown to over 100,000 feet within an hour of each other.

There were almost more cameramen, producer, directors and mysterious film people then there were of us, and we had a pretty big crew. The JPA team was smooth and were complete pros. Both vehicles were really complex and even with film crews everywhere and in everything the launches were among the best we’ve ever done. It was a very different experience for us and was a lot of fun. The documentary team was great (hey they bought dinner the night before in Brunos, they must be OK).

We flew Away 36 and 37. Away 35 was to fly in the third position. Filming took so long that we were outside our launch window when Away 35’s turn was up. We’ll be back in the desert soon for Away 35.

Away 36 and 37 carried five high definition cameras to near space. I believe this may be the first time the near space environment has been recorded at this resolution. The images are stunning. Unfortunately everyone will have to wait for the documentary to be out in the fall before it can be seen.

Away 37 flew within a few yards 106,000 feet. From the climb rate and descent horizontal position we know that Away 36 went higher however, it suffered system problems and we didn’t get the peak altitude.

Recovery was an adventure. Away 36 landed in a saddle near a peak. Paul and Kevin were the first on the scene with Paul getting the first sighting. Way to go Paul! One team member had a fall and had to be carried out by two other team members. A great big thank you goes out to Kevin who doubled as Flight for mission control and as rescue personal for this mission. All is well, the x-rays are in and no broken bones. Even though they landed within 12 miles of each other the recoveries were very different. We had to mount a second expedition to Nevada a day after our return to go after Away 37. On Away 37 our last fix was 5,000 feet above the ground. We actually got to that fix on the same day as launch. However it wasn’t there. When we got back we analyzed the flight data and threw out the last few GPS points do to poor satellite locks and replotted. With a rough fix and a directional antenna on the beacon frequency we headed back out. It took a nine and half hour hike though the desert to recovery Away 37, but it was there this time. When we found it she was laying on iher side. However, looking at the video we can see she made a prefect upright landing. The wind had blown her over later.

We’re still poring over the data from the experiments. The results will all be in the documentary. We used several pieces of new ground equipment for telemetry. The mission was accomplished but the new gear worked badly. We’ll be tweaking it and will get a chance for another shakedown with Away 35.

This was the first mission for several of our members. All the newbies looked like old hands and our old hands made it all look easy. Great job folks.

JP