<\/a>Our hangar <\/div>
At Wanaka Airport<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Faerie meeting place <\/div>
In Queenstown<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Steven attaches the boresight guide camera <\/div>
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<\/a>Rebecca and Ajay mount the batteries <\/div>
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<\/a>Mounted batteries <\/div>
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<\/a>Reattaching the MCC <\/div>
"Master Control Computer"<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Emaad approves <\/div>
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<\/a>Nap time <\/div>
On the mechanic's creeper<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>CSBF's solar arrays under construction <\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>![Partially assembled "solar skirt" \u2022 <a style="font-size:0.8em;" href="http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/27717602@N03\/52748055044\/" target="_blank">View on Flickr<\/a>](https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/52748055044_a2c1d87fcc_m.jpg "Partially assembled \\"solar skirt\\"")
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<\/a>Partially assembled "solar skirt" <\/div>
Which is gigantic<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Cutting foam <\/div>
There is a lot of foam to cut. Day\/night flight like superbit need lots of insulation.<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Vy made a telescope cover <\/div>
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<\/a>BIT's boats <\/div>
Outer frame on the left. Inner and middle frames on right.<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Mt Iron track <\/div>
Nice hill trail in town for an after-work hike<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Storage drive insulation <\/div>
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<\/a>Fully assembled solar skirt <\/div>
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<\/a>Inner frame cables routed neatly <\/div>
By me and Vy<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Primary mirror rotation mechanism <\/div>
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<\/a>Inner frame from the front <\/div>
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<\/a>Starboard side of the telescope <\/div>
With gyroscope and guide camera. And green heaters everywhere.<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Port side of telescope <\/div>
With more gyros and the roll guide camera<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Tip\/tilt mirror controller <\/div>
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<\/a>Closer look at just the top of the inner frame <\/div>
Where most of the electronics boxes live<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Taped over LEDs on star camera computer <\/div>
We darken everything to not have little flashes contaminate our images<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Airside <\/div>
Out the big hangar door on the runway side<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>More creeper napping <\/div>
It's quite comfortable<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Barth's Safety Style <\/div>
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<\/a>Testing the SIP outside <\/div>
"Support instrumentation package", the communication electronics<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>The telescope's belly <\/div>
When it's pointed up high<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Telescope up high <\/div>
From the other side<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>The elevation drive <\/div>
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<\/a>Foaming up the telescope <\/div>
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<\/a>Vy makes the outer frame shiny <\/div>
Creating a reflective "oven" to keep the batteries warm<\/div><\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Spencer helps with telescope foaming <\/div>
We put our recently arrive theorist to work on hardware.<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Susan and Barth inspect the shininess <\/div>
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<\/a>Pointing at shininess <\/div>
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<\/a>![Preparing "the hat" \u2022 <a style="font-size:0.8em;" href="http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/27717602@N03\/52747807936\/" target="_blank">View on Flickr<\/a>](https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/52747807936_36c436f1a6_m.jpg "Preparing \\"the hat\\"")
<\/a>
<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/ballast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/IMG_1278-IMG_1296_blended_fused_scaled-1024x170.jpg\")
![\"Barth's](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52747808491_e9795cf137_n.jpg\")
After a brief break back home, I head back to New Zealand to join the SuperBIT team preparing for a launch from Wanaka. Much of the hardware team had arrived a couple weeks before I did, and had set up the lab, cleaned the telescope, and started to put things together. During my first week we put everything together in a form that’s ready for full-system ground testing, if not quite ready for the rigours of the stratosphere. Wanaka is also beautiful. A person could get used to launching balloons from here. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6662"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6678,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6662\/revisions\/6678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}