What’s Happening at JPA

The short guy is ready to fly.

I’ll be live on the web on the Spacevidcast show in a couple of hours from now (7pm pst).

http://www.spacevidcast.com/

Hit the website while I’m on and let me know you’re out there!

With five vehicles there is a pile of systems to test. A month ago as each system was completed they were individually bench tested. The next rounds of tests occur after they get mounted on their respective vehicles. That what we did Saturday. It’s called the intergrated systems test. We got though two main controller, four backup tracking units, three balloon release systems, two video camera controllers, two rocket motor heaters and two still cameras.

Still to go are three balloon release systems (one failed and needed work and retesting), five beacons, three still camera controllers, six still cameras and four satellite uplink units. After all the bugs are worked out on the intergrated tests we then move on to the full up tests. This is were we “ground fly” each of the vehicle from the mission control van. On that test we power up the systems with the flight check lists and run full mission durations.  That means your’s truly needs to get busy and finish the checklists…..

“Suborbital space” has been getting a lot of attention these days. Here’s a shot from Away 25 six years ago. Suborbital space JPA style.

A great big thank you goes out to Convergent Design. We’re flying their nanoFlash video recorder on Away 43. They have very graciously provided the two 64gig high performance memory cards that the unit uses. We’re doing some 100 fps HD video on this flight.

www.convergent-design.com

Sint-Pieterscollege in Belgium has flown with us on more flights then any other school. Check out there great space site.

http://www.freewebs.com/project-space/usaballonvluchten.htm

The five vehicle we’re flying on the next mission are under final construction. The main systems are all complete and it’s down to the long list of little things. Saturday the team really went to town. We had a list of eight things that had to get done. At the end of the day all eight were lined off and three scheduled for next Wednesday were also cranked out.

These five will be covering a whole range of objectives from new tech to working out bugs for the Tandem mission this summer. The plan is to launch the first four at 45 minute intervals. That will be the most vehicles we’ve managed in the air at once. Mission control will have their hands full with this one. The fifth vehicle we’re going to fly the next day.

Camera controller and Parallax Propeller based balloon release system.

Envelope for Jellyfish balloon.

Documentary producer Foolish Earthling Productions is using their high altitude ad as a very cool background on their web site.

http://www.foolishearthling.com/0_17_writings_of_lennick.html

This image was taken on the Away 38 mission. One more ad space is available on the up coming April 24th mission.

We’ve started experimenting with a new material, paper honeycomb panels. It’s light, very stiff, strong and cheap. We plan on using it as an alternative to foam for a core material in carbon structures. We also going to try it out for balloon interface panels for the next Dark Sky Station and Ascender.

As a first test it’s being used a the instrument deck on Away 46. That will give us a chance to see how it handles extreme cold and vacuum. The deck ended up the same weight as our existing carbon and foam deck. However it took only a fraction of the time to make and a quarter of the cost.

I’m giving a talk Wednesday March 24th at the Sacramento chapter of the AIAA’s monthly meeting.  It will be all about shooting commercials and documentaries at 100,000 feet. Here’s a flyer from AIAA with the info:

http://www.aiaasacramento.com/media/2010-03-24_Dinner.pdf

If you’re anywhere close, come on down!