{"id":280,"date":"2008-08-25T23:31:11","date_gmt":"2008-08-25T23:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/25\/away-35-mission\/"},"modified":"2008-08-25T23:31:11","modified_gmt":"2008-08-25T23:31:11","slug":"away-35-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/?p=280","title":{"rendered":"Away 35 Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Away<\/a> \"Away<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Away<\/a> \"Away<\/a> \"Away<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Away<\/a> \"Away<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Away<\/a> \"Away<\/a><\/p>\n

There was a little excitement on the way to the launch site. A tire blew on the mission
\ncontrol van pulling the trailer, in the mountains, on a curve with pretty heavy traffic all
\nspeeding to Reno. The crew found a wide spot on the road and in 40 minutes we were
\nback heading for Blackrock.<\/p>\n

Several of the team members couldn’t arrive till 2am the night before. So instead of
\nrolling from the motel at 4am we held till 5:30am.<\/p>\n

We hit the lake bed like we had a purpose and soon antennas starting going up, the balloon
\nlaunch bag was being laid out, and the checklist for Away 35 was begun.<\/p>\n

This was our first flight with the new 4000g balloon. It may be the first flight ever of this
\nballoon. The balloon fill went very smooth. The balloon bag was sized specifically for this balloon.
\nThis is the size that we’re using on the Tandem airship. This mission was a chance to get
\na feel for a balloon this big.<\/p>\n

The launch went by the numbers. The Balloon Captain actually commands the launch.
\nIt was Go, Tear, three steps then we were airborne. Once out of the launch bag the balloon
\nelongated about twice it’s “spherical length”. It was not a very good sign, however about four
\nseconds into flight is became a ball and up it went.<\/p>\n

At 24,000 feet two of the GPS’s on board lost all satellites. This was very weird. The GPS’s
\nare different brands, connected to completely different telemetry systems and in entirely
\ndifferent location on the vehicle. We were still talking to both GPS units. The communications
\nwas great, just no satellites. The team confirmed that we still had a good bearing on the
\nbeacon. With the strong beacon and backup satellite uplink GPS in good shape, we made
\nthe decision to press on with the mission.<\/p>\n

The Tandem motor systems test was going great. Every ten minutes we would send up
\na command to spin up the motor. We would then query the vehicle for RPM, motor battery
\nvoltage, external temperature and vehicle heading.<\/p>\n

At 60,000 feet both GPS’s re-acquired satellite lock and started reporting position again.
\nThe outside temperature was down to -55 degrees F, not too bad, we’ve flown through
\n-90 F before.<\/p>\n

Away 35 should be 40 miles down range by now. Yet it’s still straight overhead. The winds
\naloft measurements from the National Weather Service showed and 105 knot wind blowing
\nto the east at mid altitude. Apparently it wasn’t there. The vehicle it starting to drift
\nto the south west. We’re all hoping for an easterly turn. There is some very high and rough
\nterrain to the south west.<\/p>\n

Our sigh of relief was short lived. At 65,000 we lost satellite lock again. Again it was at the
\nsame time on two different systems. Even the cable are run separate! It’s easy to start
\nthe guessing game on what has happened but we still have a mission to fly. We keep running
\nthe experiments and testing comms. The external temperature sensor is out rough altimeter.
\nThe vehicle is so close the team can still see the balloon with binoculars.The temperature outside
\nAway 35 is a toasty 4 degrees F. That info along with the climb rate means we’re somewhere
\naround 105,000 feet (The third backup GPS satellite uplink doesn’t give altitude).<\/p>\n

There is a shout outside the mission control, the balloon has suddenly vanished. An inquire
\nto the vehicle shows the outside temperature is getting colder, we’re coming down.<\/p>\n

I’m still completely wiped out from the recovery op. More tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a little excitement on the way to the launch site. A tire blew on the mission control van pulling the trailer, in the mountains, on a curve with pretty heavy traffic all speeding to Reno. The crew found a wide spot on the road and in 40 minutes we were back heading for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jpaerospace.com\/new_wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}