What’s Happening at JPA

Lots of pieces across the project were worked on during Saturdays build session.  Paul finished the modifications to one of the small balloon launch bags, Ethan glued together several vehicle antenna mounts for Away 48. Kevin assembled the ceramic insulator for the quad engine MHD power generator and Bob toiled away all day on data conversion from the last mission. Mike did epic battle with the balloon release circuit upgrade.

A lot of other tasks got crossed off the list as well. Progress was made modifying the new Tandem/Sky Pup trailer. I did a radio interview in the middle of it all and Kevin tackled the unfun task of sorting through all the helium tanks from the last mission.

Here’s some images from the Ascender 175.  These were taken about five years ago.  The new Ascender 100 should be rolled out sometime next summer (2011).

Tomorrow at 11:15 am pacific time I’m a guest on the Space Talk radio show in Florida.

You can listen live on the web here:

http://wmmbam.com/pages/spacetalk.html

Here are two groups of researcher that participated in the Away 45 and Away 46 missions. Each one build their own edge of  space PongSat experiment. I expect to see all of them on Mars one day. Way to go!

They are from a kindergarten class and third Grade class of Hopkins Elementary School.

The quad engine is getting closer and closer to firing. The oxidizer plumbing is done. We did a cold flow test at 100 psi.  It turns on and off just like it should from the remote control box. We also modified our Hypertech ignition system for the quad. Lastly we’ve mounted the whole thing on tracks.

Next the instrumentation needs to be added so we’ll know what’s going on. Then the entire system will get mounted on a cart to make setup in the desert easier.

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Saturday was a day of sewing, circuits and foam cutting. We need a little more power output from the new propeller driven balloon release (propeller as in the chip).  Mike spent the day bread boarding the modification circuit.  Paul was busy at the sewing machine creating a wider tear panel for our small balloon bag. The balloon bag is just the right size for sea level launches but too small for launches the 4000 foot Black Rock lake bed.  The wider tear panel will add just the right amount of room. Ethan our evil intern wrestled with triangles all day making antenna mounts for the next set of vehicles (the triangles almost had him, but he won out in the end).

Here are some images from camera 2 on Away 46.

On descent the radar reflector, which is suspended below the vehicle, came up to say “hi”.

We carried 150 student built PongSat experiments on the last mission set. Here are three PongSats up top.