<\/a>Riggers hanging out <\/div>
Above the SIP card<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Steven balances the reaction wheel <\/div>
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<\/a>The pivot's partly-insulated hat <\/div>
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<\/a>Sun sensor <\/div>
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<\/a>Rebecca's birthday <\/div>
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<\/a>Hard drive mount\/insulation <\/div>
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<\/a>Spencer's porthole <\/div>
As we work on thermal covering all around BIT<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Bill taping <\/div>
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<\/a>Susan taping <\/div>
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<\/a>Vy taping <\/div>
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<\/a>Starlink antenna <\/div>
We're test flying one, which may provide lots of bandwidth<\/div><\/div>
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<\/a>Back to taping <\/div>
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<\/a>Box around the moving elevation drive <\/div>
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<\/a>Not finished <\/div>
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<\/a>
<\/a>Washer fishing <\/div>
With tape on a stick, to clean off the battery covers<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Ajay tests MCC replacement parts <\/div>
As we consider a replacement to resolve some issues<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Repairing the MCC <\/div>
After finally deciding<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Shiny telescope <\/div>
I make the front golden as I finish cleaning up its covering<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Group photo <\/div>
Before we lose Steven and the group starts shrinking<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Steven's final tapig <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Attempted astrophotography at airport <\/div>
With Milky Way, and Large Magellanic Cloud at top right<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Painting the heater power supplies <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>![Iridium Pilot "mushroom" mounting \u2022 <a style="font-size:0.8em;" href="http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/27717602@N03\/52779862742\/" target="_blank">View on Flickr<\/a>](https:\/\/farm66.static.flickr.com\/65535\/52779862742_a549ffbed0_m.jpg "Iridium Pilot \\"mushroom\\" mounting")
<\/a>
<\/a>Iridium Pilot "mushroom" mounting <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Antenna boom <\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>TDRSS Hi-Gain antenna <\/div>
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<\/a>
<\/a>Shorter rigging <\/div>
To eke out a little bit more height<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>LIfting up for the SIP cart <\/div>
<\/div><\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Sitting down on the SIP cart <\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Susan inside the boat <\/div>
Testing if she can fit<\/div><\/div>
<\/a>
<\/a>Outside at the airport <\/div>
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<\/a>![\"Attempted](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/52780397376_55d507c58f_n.jpg\")
With BIT’s functionality tested, it was time to shift to major arts and crafts mode. All of BIT gets covered in some combination of insulation foam, tape, and shiny aluminized mylar. The exact proportions of each are carefully chosen to keep each part thermally happy in the stratosphere. Some of this had previously been done inside the outer frame and around the telescope, but outside the outer frame needs a lot of it before we can fly. With the arrival of Bill we reached peak team size. But we also started shrinking later in the week when Steven had to leave us. […]<\/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\/6682"}],"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=6682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6683,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6682\/revisions\/6683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/droppingballast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}