Telecon tomorrow (Thursday) @ 5 pm Eastern time

Hi all,

Telecon tomorrow (Oct. 24 in North America, Oct. 25 in Australia) at the regular time: 5 pm Eastern (2 pm Pacific, 11 am Hawaii, 23.00 European, 8 am Eastern Australia). Updates on telemetry, on more progress on AIFCOMSS station-keeping prediction/simulation software, and on testing of the windowless Hamamatsu photodiodes with the new amplifier boards and new equipment received from Thorlabs. More discussion items for tomorrow's telecon include: flight/telescope plans and tests; construction and lab tests of the new gondolas/payloads; light sources and light source modelling; goniometric and pre- and post-flight calibration; propulsion work; nanosat bus and payload solid models; computing / website / TWiki forums and e-mails; grant applications; and recap of schedules. I'll send a progress report before the telecon tomorrow.

Here's how to connect:

1) Open Skype on your computer (note that of course, you should first install Skype, http://www.skype.com, on your machine if you haven't already).

2) In the "Contacts" menu, add me ( jalbertuvic ) as a contact, if you haven't already.

3) Just wait for me to Skype-call you at the usual time (5 pm Eastern, 2 pm Pacific, etc).

4) If there is any trouble, or if you don't get a Skype-call for some reason and would like to join, please just send me an e-mail (jalbert@uvicNOSPAMPLEASE.ca).

Here's the tentative agenda:

I) Flight & telescope plans, and upcoming tests

II) Construction, drop tests, and other tests of the new gondola and payload

III) Diffused light source and its modelling, pre- and post-flight calibration, and goniometric calibrations

IV) Solid modelling

V) Computing/website, including recent flight control and simulation progress

VI) Grant applications

VII) AOB

Talk to you all tomorrow, thanks!!!

justin

-- jalbert - 2019-10-23

Hi all!

Apologies for the delay! -- here's just a brief update on ALTAIR balloon work over the past 2 weeks (very brief because I just sent in our latest CSA FAST application this morning, so most of the focus has been on that!), minutes of the meeting 2 weeks ago (attendees Arnold Gaertner [NRC] and me), and a reminder of the telecon in 30 minutes (!!) from now:

Regarding 144 MHz telemetry for ALTAIR -- we received a good quote from Raveon on their 5 watt RV-M8S VHF radio modem: https://www.raveon.com/m8s-oem-data-radio-modem so we have just now ordered two of those Raveon RV-M8S 144 MHz data radio modems, and they'll arrive here in December. That was necessary mostly because I still have not yet received a response from Radiometrix regarding the problem with their SHX1-144 144 MHz transceiver modules, which we have been using for the past few years, that we reported to them on Sept. 13 -- the BUSY signal from the Radiometrix transceiver modules always reads 4 volts, no matter whether the board is actually BUSY or not -- despite having followed up with a second e-mail to Radiometrix on Sept. 25, then called them this past week (their sales rep said on the phone that she had talked to Radiometrix tech support about it, and they are working on it, but are just very busy). I'm still hoping that I'll hear back from Radiometrix (and I'll poke them again at the beginning of November if I haven't) if that problem with their modules is fixable (e.g., with new EEPROM code), or not. But I'm now not hopeful that it is fixable, so assuming that the Raveon modules work well for us (when we've received and tested them ourselves), then we'll switch over to using them, instead of the Radiometrix modules.

Student Peter Ogilvie is still working with the new Thorlabs equipment (12 extra standard FDS-100 photodiodes [with windows; and we will see if we can cleanly take a couple of the windows off with our WR1 can opener that we got this summer], three new laser diodes [a 980 nm wavelength L980P200, an 840 nm wavelength L840P200, and an extra 660 nm L660P120 laser diode], and some new laser diode driver ICs [MLD203P1, MLD203P2, MLD203CLN, MLD203P1E, and MLD203CLNE]):

I will resume drop testing in my backyard with the dummy ALTAIR payload next week (since the weather is supposed to be decent here early next week). I'll work on (and hopefully get next week) a repeatable parafoil-folding recipe for assuring that the parafoil opens promptly following release.

Next grant application will be a NATO "Science for Peace and Security" application, together with Australian colleague partners.

Our next telecon is in 30 minutes(!) from now (see below for Skype instructions).

Cheers, talk in a half-hour from now -- thanks all!

justin

-- jalbert - 2019-11-07