With all the talk of space travel due to the 40th anniversary of the moon flight, I thought I'd share about a \"poor man's\" space program I'm involved with, called JP Aerospace. Our main goal is to find an inexpensive and safe way to get into space using a series of 3 airships instead of rockets (video). As seen in the video, a vehicle called an Acender takes off from the ground and flies to 140,000 feet where it docks with an inflatable station called a Dark Sky Station. The vehicle that actually leaves the atmosphere then takes off from there. To give a sense of size, the Dark Sky in the video is projected to be about a mile across.
So obviously we haven't quite gotten there yet, but we have done some pretty cool stuff. Mission Away 38 on Saturday, June 27, 2008, was the second mission that I have had the opportunity to participate in. This mission was particularly special because it was the 100th mission we have flown since we were founded. As with all other missions, we traveled to the Black Rock desert in Nevada to fly the vehicle, called a high rack. We drove up from Sacramento Friday afternoon, spent the night at an old hotel in Gerlach, NV, a very small town not far from our launch site. We then left for the desert at 4:30 a.m., setup the vehicle, and had it in the air around 8. After a couple of hours floating upwards, it reached a maximum altitude just shy of 100,000 feet when the balloon burst. It came back down in about a half an hour or so, and was one of the easiest recoveries we have ever had, landing about 4-5 miles from the launch site and about 100 meters from the road.
There were three main objectives for this mission, both of which were preparation for future missions. First, we have an upcoming mission to fly a vehicle called a tandem airship, which if successful will break NASA’s record for the highest airship ever. With this in mind, our first objective was to finish testing the electronics for the tandem, especially the GPS, which we had fail on Away 35 last summer. Secondly, we hope to soon actually accomplish a space flight by firing a rocket out of a launch tube supported by a balloon. To practice firing rockets off of a balloon-suspended vehicle, we mounted two model rockets on the high rack, with hopes to shoot one off at 80,000 feet and the second at 90,000 feet. Lastly, our final objective was our usual space ad photos (one source of income) and pongsats (ping-pong ball sized experiments from students, professors, and hobbyists flown for free).
The following are photos from the mission.
The first peek of the sun over the horizon.
The high rack, fully assembled and ready for flight, with our mission control van in the background. The rockets, one of which pictured below, are in the two parallel launch boxes on the forward boom.
The middle and top decks of the high rack. The large box in the middle is the tiny track, the “fail safe” GPS module independent of the main controller. The little ping pong balls with switches are special pongsats containing electronics. All of the other pongsats that don’t require special setup go in the large blue container below the middle deck.
The lower deck of the vehicle, containing the main controller (the large box), pong sat bag, camera controller, and rocket launch relay box.
The rocket launch boxes.
The balloon in its bag, fully filled and ready for attachment to the high rack.
The two antennas with which we communicate with the package. The dish on the left is the 900MHz antenna used to control the main controller, and the yagi on the right receives GPS from the tiny track.
Launch! Below is a picture from full altitude, just below 100,000 feet.
The mission went fairly smooth, the only problem being that the rockets did not fire because the engines were too cold to ignite. Both GPS systems worked properly this time, so we will be able to keep moving forward. Because the winds changed direction mid-flight, the vehicle landed only about 4-5 miles from our launch site and about 100 meters from the road, making it one of the easiest recoveries we’ve ever had.
One thing very significant about this mission is that it was a milestone for us- our 100th mission! We celebrated by drinking champagne at the landing site.
The following are some random pictures of the town of Gerlach, NV.
The saloon is essentially the town center, and contains a restaurant, bar, and office for the hotel. Note the duct tape holding the antlers on the deer.
We aren't the only ones who use Black Rock for aerospace experiments. This monument is to the Fireballs program, an annual event at Black Rock where amateurs fly experimental rockets. Despite all of the safety rules for this program, the rocket pictured above somehow ignited while lying on a table and ended up the tire of the ranger in charge of the event. He laughed it off and made this a monument to the program.
See a video of the mission featuring footage from onboard cameras!
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