While I was away on my day-trip to Fort Sumner, assembly of the telescope into the gondola structure was started. The goal was testing it in its flight configuration…and eventually flying. Asmebly continued over a couple days, with intermixed stretches of testing.
Telescope in middle boat
With AC-blocking tent, which also proves useful for leaks during the rain storm
Collimator telescope
Pointed down, because the main telescope must point up a bit in its frame
Vibrolator
A gadget John cooked up to shake the inner frame at a fixed frequency, during fine-pointing tests
Mess of hastily connected cables
RAIN!
There has been a lot of this lately
Outer frame up on jack stands
So that the ballast hopper can be test fit
The top of the outer frame
Outer frame in the air
As its lowered back down
Aldous and Mathew Shinifying
The outer frame must be covered in aluminized mylar, to prevent overheating in the sun.
Barth operates the crane
Javier lines things up
Now the middle frame up on jack stands
Vy and John install the cooling strap for the main science camera
Fully assembled baffle tube
Prevents stray light, and has lots of heaters to control the telescope's thermal environment
Not-quite fledgling swallows being fed
At the hotel
Last minute modification of the inner frame computer
The guts of the IFC
The master control computer gets a foam box
To keep it warm
Neatly routed cables
Remember that mess earlier? This makes me happy.
More cable routing
Inner frame electronics, ready to install
Heater control box
Steven searches for junk with a magnet
Finds a few nuts and a bunch of ball bearings
Balls leftover from being dropped into the gondola as ballast during the previous flight
Cables running off the inner frame
And straps, ready to lift it
Telescope, plus inner and middle frames, together at last
Screwing it down
Powering up the batteries
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