With compatibility done, we are now firmly in odds-and-ends phase, making sure things are mechanically, thermally, and calibrationally ready to fly. Yesterday we started using up a lot of the scrap aluminized mylar to fill in holes. Lorenzo did some star camera alignment tests. And for a while, the lights were off and I don’t […]
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Yesterday morning was the first real balloon launch of the season! (And the first launch since the Australia “Mishap”, also available in several forms on youtube.) BARREL is a small payload that requires only a “hand launch” rather that requiring the large launch vehicle (aka The Boss). Still, a launch is a launch, […] Vic came by yesterday to give us our official weigh-in. This is one of several fabled portents that a balloon might launch soon. The scale read 4495lbs, but after subtracting CSBF’s electornics, and accounting for a few small changes before launch, we have about 4000lbs of “science weight”. Forty pounds heavier than expected. I blame […] This past weekend was another quiet one, out at LDB. We’re working on finishing up all the little things that need doing before we fly. The remaining sun shields are being outfitted with mylar, software is being ironed out, and the occasional bug pops up and needs fixing. I had some fun projects with the […] Two days ago we took BLAST outside to the pad! (After the previous night’s late team fixed the terrible DAS-doesn’t-work-anymore bug we’d created. This is the primary reason I didn’t sleep in, and I’m glad I didn’t—otherwise I would have missed a bunch of important pictures.) Seeing BLAST outside, and The Boss in action are […] Yesterday we were going to push to be taken outside to the wooden pad (aka the dance floor, but that doesn’t fit my alliterative title) to do sensor alignment calibrations. But it was too windy, so instead we did a thorough job of all the prep work that we were going to rush through. At […] Yesterday we attached the fully mylarized Side Scoop of Joy to the gondola. The scoop is light, but huge. So, attaching it required all the space we had in the highbay. If you’re curious, its joyousness is primarily due to contrast with the absurdly ginormous Wall of Doom, which it replaced. Yesterday was also […] When the science grind starts to get you down, little bits of awesomeness do a great job of cheering you up. At least it works for me. Yesterday I discovered some snow sculptures, and Barth put out some Christmas decorations. Yesterday was the day after our LDB sleepover party. I was exhausted but still managed to help finally make beam maps. It only took a week of waiting and bug fixing. They don’t look great, but they’re done. And since the test isn’t perfect, some things that look bad may not be real. We hope […] Because the start of our acceptable launch window is rapidly approaching (starting on maybe the 18th of December), we were not willing to give up on work yesterday. But, it was still windy, and the previous day had thrown some serious snow drifts up on the road. We could not go out in the morning, […] |
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