Went over to Moscow Charter School to present the pongsat program to the 4th graders. Many questions and much excitement.
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I bought a box of ping pong balls to test the best way to cut them in half. After trying several methods (hacksaw, exacto knife, dremell) the NiCr wire cut the best and easiest.
Last night while taking with my wife, Kathryn, I came upon the idea of holding a district wide 4th grade PongSat launch. A quick calculation told me that 4 balloons should handle the district. This year is the pilot program for pongsats with her 4th graders at Moscow Charter School. We should learn a lot about running the program along with developing some curriculum materials that we could then organize for the district. Should be very interesting.
This year promises to have some interesting experiments on board. First up is an electric field measurement device that will determine the sign and size of the static charge that builds up on the balloon as it rises. There's not a lot of background information out there so this will be a big experiment. Next is an imaging device that will mount a camera outside the module and be able to rotate to give varying perspectives. Also on board will be an elementary school's pongsats. The 4th grade class at Moscow Charter School will be developing a string of pongsat to send up. they should be interesting.
Launch conditions were far less than optimal. The ground wind was out of the west south-west at a steady 20 mph with gust up to 30 mph. Inflation was hampered by the balloon oscillating from the gusts. Therefore ascertaining an accurate lift proved impossible and our ascent speed hovered around 2.5 ft/s. An hour into the flight the balloon altitude had only reached 49k feet.
The technical aspects of the flight were almost flawless.We sent aloft 1 still camera, an upward and sideward pointing video camera, a live video transmitter, and a LabQuest recording alpha, beta, and gamma radiation levels. In addition a new and improved cut down system was on board. The cut down system work perfectly. A couple of minutes prior to launch the timer was set to 60 minutes and executed on time. The only hiccup occurred with the radiation meter. A switch was not moved prior to launch so no data was recorded. The live video feet exceeded our performance metrics and maintained contact until 30 kft. Once the command module was cut from the balloon we did not regain the live video feed. We're not sure why as we expected the link to reestablish once the module fell below the cut out altitude. The agreed upon most likely culprit was that the antenna was spinning to fast. Overall a good flight considering the bad launch conditions. It's a good thing the launch was canceled because Mikaela's LCD for the cut down system stopped working after she transferred the circuit from the bread board to the proto board. She diagnosed the problem this week. I've been in Denver for the NCTM conference so I haven't talked to her yet. Hopefully she got it figured out.
Well, the launch for April 13 was scrubbed. The winds were predicted to be around 20 mph and rains and thunderstorms were predicted. The actual weather outdid these predictions. The winds cranked up to around 40 mph and rain was on and off all day. It would have been a terrible day for a launch. So, we've pushed back the launch to May 18th. The weather should settle down by then.
 Here's the circuit diagram for the LED Flasher that we'll be using on the next launch. It uses a 555 timer in astable mode to flash high intensity LED's at about 4 Hz. This will be the first launch we use flashing lights and we are interested in seeing how this helps with locating the module both in flight and during recovery.
We're nearing the launch date. The weather is looking rather windy for the the morning of the launch so it seems iffy at this point. The university launched last weekend and the weather was perfect. I saw Dave at a baseball game that afternoon. So launch and recovery went perfectly.
I've been thinking about increased wind launches and how to get around the issue. What I've come up with so far is a smooth cloth or cargo net that can be used to hold the balloon and payload down. Then on count down it could be released. Or after count down it would be released when a break in the wind came about. This might make windy launches possible because balloon management would not be an issue. We performed a comm test today. Both tracking transmitters acquired gps and transmitted. Initially one had a low power level from the batteries so it simply emitted clicks. We also ran the video transmitter during the test to see if any interference would occur. We did not get any interference as expected. The trackers transmit at 144.39 MHz and the video transmitter operates at 2.3 GHz.
The structure team is busy building the payload module. It will have 3 cameras on board. One still and two video. I'm not sure of the orientation they'll have. They have one hole cut and will get the other two next class meeting.They are going for the box structure.
Helen is having trouble with the transmitter/receiver. She can not get the receiver to change channels. However it seems to be intermittent. Hopefully she will get it figured out and it won't be a problem.
Mikaela is completing her revision of the cut down system. She is adding an LCD interface and a keypad. These improvements will allow us to input exact times for the cut-down, perform cut test, monitor wire usage, and battery status. A big improvement from the previous version. Also a three position key switch will be used to control power on/off, and keypad lock.
Helen's project will be to create a live video feed from the balloon to the bus. We have ordered the materials and are excited about the project. The video camera is about an inch cube in size and is connected to a transmitter that is about 2 inches by 1 inch by 1/4 inch. The frequency is 2.3 GHz. The receiver will be hooked up to a screen on board the bus. The signal will also be routed to a video recorder. Kenny will be testing electronic equipment in near space conditions. He'll be sending up a cell phone. His hypothosis is the LCD screen will break due to pressur Look very good. Steady easterly direction with average drift of around 60 miles. The weather is not optimal as of right now.
Both microtraks are functioning properly and ready for launch. Ran the test on number 2 today.
The predicts are looking iffy. There is a 65 mile SE drift. If we launch in Washtucna then we land near Genesse.
We decided to conduct our launch with out the University. May 3rd students do not have school so we will take advantage of that time to perform the launch. Genesse will be attending as well.
Weather and jet stream were not cooperating for a launch. Not sure when we'll get it in.
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