What’s Happening at JPA

They did a wonderful job. Check it out:

http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/11/15848691-learn-more-about-jp-aerospace?lite

Last September we were honored to fly wedding rings for our friend Kota Takaichi. He has made an incredible and moving video about the project. You gotta watch it!

I just got word we’re scheduled to be on the NBC Evening News with Brian Williams tonight. We got bumped last time. Everybody hope for a quite news day!

Lots of PongSats. Students making PongSats, JPA playing at the edge of space, kids opening PongSats to see what happened. There should be some great in flight video too.

Tell everybody you know. I think it’s going to happen this time. 🙂

The boom made it a bit tricky. We really didn’t launch in overcast. It was just hazy and the camera doesn’t see through it.

One of the things we need to do every flight is determine the length of the balloon rigging. The longer the rigging the harder it is to launch esp. in the wind. However a short rigging means the platform can get tangled in balloon debris. This can foul the parachute. The balloon danger area is different each time depending on the fill volume of the balloon. We had a camera pointed at the balloon/vehicle interface on this flight. I think we got it right.

We flew to just over 96,000 feet. It was cold and windy and we landed  far down range. It was a great mission, the vehicle has been recovered and we ‘re on our way home.

We are rolling for the desert for Away 75. I think this is our 145th mission. Away 75 is a high altitude balloon mission. We are carrying 32 separate payloads (ten are PongSats),six HD cameras and a twenty foot camera boom. This is a single vehicle run with just a small crew. It will be relaxing after the mega missions of the past two years.

Wish us luck!

Tonight we will be on the NBC Evening News with Brian Williams!
It’s all about PongSats. Students making PongSats, Us flying PongSats, kids opening PongSats to see what happened.

There should be some great in flight video too.

UPDATE: We got bumped. As soon as I know when it’s rescheduled for I’ll let you know.