Last week the BLAST cryostat arrived to begin the first full(-ish) integration of BLASTpol. Upon arrival it was undressed and bore its tender bits, to have travel legs replaced with thermally isolating ones. Also the HWPR (pronounced “hooper”, despite what Natalie may say about whatever the “whipper” is) had to be removed and sent immediately […]
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Juan has taken on fixing and programming the inner frame balance pump. Presumably he took these pictures. While I was in Philadelphia (a couple months ago now…I’m still posting old pictures), everyone back in Toronto was working really hard to get the gondola pointing, the star camera mounted, and sun shield completely assembled. All this in preparation for the PIC (which can be thought of as “the pick”), at which NASA decides […] I downloaded a bunch of pictures today, and there are a startling amount taken of the lock pin. So I figured I’d post at least some of them, and combine it with a few I took long ago while repairing it. In November, Juan and I assemled the Spider reaction wheel. Now, three months later, I realize I haven’t posted the pictures. In the past three months, the motor assembly has had a bearing added at the bottom to prevent binding. While many of us will travel through the arms of the reaction wheel, so far […] A post of updated BLASTpol photos. Since the last update not much has changed. The OSC is mounted in a temporary manner with no PV. There are about 4000lbs of sand bags strapped in the SIP mount. There are a few more cables than before. Yesterday we test-assembled Spider. Spider, in all its carbon-fiber-and-finely-crafted-joints glory, is the most beautiful gondola ever created—in my humble opinion. Sadly, finely-crafted has its limits and there are a few misfit pieces. We were joined by Emma, Jamil, and Steffi: our new student, returning student, and guest photographer (visiting Juan). Last week the last of three Spider starcam baffles was glued. Natalie and Juan have become the de-facto gluing people, so they continued doing their thing. This was an easy job, but I felt like having pictures. New star camera computers arrived last week. We can’t seem to buy the EBX boards we are using as flight computers, so instead we are using cute little PC-104+ guys. I have named this one mite, after spider mites (those little red spiders). Also, Natalie got her corrected star camera baffle discs. The Spider gondola is composed of 35 CFRP tubes. Gluing of all the tubes required 5 days. All I can say -and I think Natalie shares my opinion- it is a tricky and long process. Here are some more pictures of the gluing, particularly of the trickier inserts, such as the spreader bar and the […] |
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