Away 48 made an appearance  in the cameras of Away 49. They were a few miles apart when the faster climbing Away 49 overtook Away 48.  Away 48 shows up about six times in each of Away 49’s five cameras. We can tell it’s Away 48 from top to bottom travel through the course of the images, and the fact the appearance coincides with the altitude of the rendezvous. The balloon is about 54 feet in diameter at this level.

Here’s the launch from Away 47’s point of view.

We took 2870 in flight still pictures and recorded 6 hours of in flight HD video.  We also took lots of video and pics on  on the ground. Here’s a few while I get the pile organized:

All three flights went very well. We made it to 85,000 feet, 101,000 feet and 103,000 feet. All vehicles and PongSats recovered and are safe and sound. Highlights include Away 49 photographing Away 48 at 100,000 feet (about 14 times). It’s just a small balloon in the frame, but very cool.

More details as more sleep is obtained.

JP

The team is about 5 minutes from rolling to the desert. It’s about a six hour trip. We deploy at 4 am tomorrow for three runs to 100,000 feet. First lift off at 7:30am.

We have 785 PongSats on board from approx. 2,300 students.

Red Sox!!!  I’m more of a Yankee’s fan myself.

Here are some of the PongSats that will be flying on the next mission.  PongSats experimenters always impress me with their ideas however this batch has really floored me.  The variety of experiments, materials, and just ‘stuff’ to try at the edge of space is, as our mission control Guru, Bob would say, “Awesome Sauce!”.

Many of the PongSats came with hypotheses from the students on what will happen to there materials in the PongSats.

Even though the science and learning is the most important aspect, I must admit, the best part is the PAINT JOBS! These space researchers out did themselves in bringing art to science!

Here’s just some of the PongSats that have arrived:

KERO 23 ABC

Student Science Project Goes into Space

Rimstar.org has posted an article and new artwork on Airship to Orbit.

Today we’re mounting the tracking systems on the High Racks. The first step though is balancing. All the gear goes on and get shuffled until it’s level and all the cables reach and none of the radios stomp on systems and the data line don’t cross antenna lines and…..