JP Aerospace Blog

JP on the Space Show Today

I’ll be on the Space Show radio program today. I’ll be on from 2:00pm till 3:30pm Pacific Time.

I’ll blog during the show and let you know how it’s going. To listen on the web goto:

http://www.thespaceshow.com/

NASA bought a copy!

I almost fell off my chair. NASA has a copy of “Floating to Space” at their headquarters library.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/find/newbooks.htm

Thanks guys!

Away 35 and Tandem Work

Away 35 and the Tandem airship are the two mission currently on deck. We’re still working out the team scheduling for Away 35. We expect to get it in the air very soon. As you’ve read, we’ve been spending the time banging our collective heads trying to squeeze more range out of the command telemetry system. We’ve been also putting the finishing touches on the new data gathering/logging system. The first experiment to use the data gather/logger will a drag management system for the Ascender airship. No drag will be managed on Away 35. It will just be a shake down of the system running at 120,000 feet.

Tandem has had a few modifications. The performance of the transmitting video has been very poor on the last few away missions. Upon inspection it looks like this gear has spend way too much time at altitude (over 20 flights to 100,000 feet) and it needs to be replaced. However, that’s not going to happen until next years budget, so the system and it’s four camera heads were pulled. The three pound weight saving will be taken up my an additional recording video camera. This also allowed us to move the backup GPS telemetry system to the spot where the video transmitter was. That solves an intermittent problem we were having with that system causing interference with the circuit on the parachute cannon.

High Pics from the Past

Here’s a few images taken above 100,000 feet on a JPA mission sometime ago.

More Telemetry Tests

Saturday was again spent working on telemetry. We had the system at double the range of last Saturday, but we’re still not there yet. I’m not worried though. Every moment invested in telemetry is a moment well spent. Bad telemetry means loss of vehicle, iffy test data, and longer development times. With solid telemetry all things are possible.

Telemetry Testing

We spent all day Saturday working through telemetry issues. We’re still not getting the performance we should out of the 900 mhz system. We set up the mission control van and all the antennas in the parking lot just like we were in the field on a mission. We then hiked for the road with the flight systems. When there was enough ground clutter to start messing up the transmission the work would begin. We would swap antennas, cables, radios, connectors, change configurations, switch from shore power to batteries, everything got a once over. We really shook down the system. After melting all day, it was almost a hundred degrees out on the street, we found a weird problem involving the an amp and one of big dishes.

We’re still narrowing it down, but now it’s in our sights.

“Floating to Space” is Out!

The book is finally out on bookstore shelves. If you don’t see it just ask.

The first review also out:

“John M. Powell is the sort of visionary who gets locked up as a madman.”

Ouch, and that was from a guy who liked the book! I must strongly disagree however. Not “madman”, the proper title is “Mad Scientist”.

Last Shoot

I’m just back from Calgary, Canada.  I was there for the filming of the last segment of the documentary we’re been involved with. It was a three day trip for what will result in about two minutes on the screen. It was fun. Film people live in a completely different world and are pretty interesting.

There’s still no air date, just “fall”. We can’t really talk about till then, but it should be pretty good.

JP on the Radio

In the middle of Saturdays build session I took an hour out to chat with Dr. Micho Kaku on his radio program.

http://www.mkaku.org/

Dr. Kaku wrote the books, “Physics of the Impossible” and “Hyperspace”. We talked about balloons rockets and space tourism. I was a bit nervous at first. I don’t think I had my head in the game. However Dr. Kaku was a great interviewer and it was a lot of fun.

Break it down - Build it up

Away 36 and Away 37 are now just a memory (and video and data). The team broke both down to components. Systems, batteries, carbon poles and parachutes are back on the shelves waiting for their next reincarnation.

The data is in a bit of disarray. During the mission the documentary crew would asked up to shut down the mission control vans generator for a few minutes. It’s noisy and interfered with filming. We did this about a dozen times. The problem was we weren’t setup for battery only operation (we were running a lot of gear on this mission). We would hold our breaths, break contact with the vehicles in the air and smile for the camera. We would hold our breaths, fire it all back up and see if are craft would still talk to us. Kudos to Kevin for his truck load of patiences in mission control. Aside from becoming nervous wrecks it was a great training exercise. When we have a telemetry dropout as we head to orbit the team won’t bat an eye. I digress, all this messing with comms in flight have left the flight logs littered with holes and artifacts. Sorting through it is like cleaning out the garage, very dusty and you never know what you’ll find.

We’re taking the time between the missions to make a few upgrades on Away 35. Here’s the Away 35 modifications:

Adding the Data system

This is our new data gather system. We need it from the more complex missions on the horizon. It will sample
eighteen sensors fives times a second. It stores the information on a memory stick and transmits it to the ground.
It’s a expanded version of the system flown on Away 36 and 37.

4000g balloon (up from the 3000g balloon)
Test for Tandem: Performance and low nozzle technique
120,000+ foot peak altitude

Additional digital camera and camera controller. This bumps Away 35’s still camera count to seven. The other six are ad pictures the new one will be a horizon shot. If were going over 120,000 feet I want a picture.

No horizon video;  to keep the weight down we’re pulling one of the two video cameras.

Spot unit; This is a satellite uplinked GPS. It flew before on Away 36.