Here are minutes of our meeting on Thursday -- please just reply with (or let me know) any corrections -- thanks!:
Attendees: Yorke Brown (Dartmouth) and I talked, and then Karun Thanjavur (UVic) joined after Yorke and I had finished talking, and I had disconnected from Skype, thus Yorke and Karun ended up meeting separately.
Yorke is working to prepare for the next flight ("ALTAIR 15") -- the new parafoil should arrive this week, and the new Kaymont weather balloons have already arrived. Weather is variable, and Dartmouth classes begin Sept. 16; a flight will hopefully be attempted before then, but there will be more student manpower available after classes begin, and weather should still be OK through October, so flights can still occur on weekends after the start of classes. Yorke has found and fixed a number of bugs in his control code, and is also working on the procedures for the next flight. It would be a very good idea to take some more standard star data (with dimmer standards and longer exposure times than the ones from a few weeks ago) just before the next flight, and also on a separate outing if possible, and it would also be good practice to do another pre-flight, long-range check of radio transmission (to Gile Mtn. or Mt. Ascutney).
Houman will be sending us updated sections of his master's thesis soon -- that information will be extremely useful to us going forward. Also, Susana and Nathan, it would be very helpful for us to get the JHU students' final writeup when you have a chance.
Some work on future electric propulsion continues here at UVic -- Apurv's benchtop motor and propeller tests here indicate that, together with 14" x 4.7 pitch propellers, the best-performing motor choices are the Turnigy D2826-6, the SK Aerodrive 2830-1020, and the NT-Propdrive 28-30. Upcoming temperature, RPM, and current monitoring tests will help us decide between those three choices, and thus we are now working on the microcontroller-based control and monitoring of that future subsystem.
There are several grant program due dates approaching, and a list of the ALTAIR-relevant ones is attached.
That's all I remember, please send things that I forgot. Next telecon in 2 weeks, on Thursday, Sept. 10 at our * new 4 pm Eastern time *.
cheers, thanks all! justin
On Thu, 27 Aug 2015 00:22:57 GMT, Justin Albert wrote: > Hi! > > Telecon tomorrow (Aug. 27) at our usual time: 1:30 pm Eastern (10:30 am > Pacific, 19.30 European). Discussion items include: flight plans, recent > calibration and observation tests, light sources and light source > modelling, goniometric and pre- and post-flight calibration, > communications tests, nanosat bus and payload solid models, > computing/website, grant applications, and recap of schedules. > > 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 (1:30 pm Eastern, 10:30 am Pacific). > 4) If there is any trouble, or if you don't get a call for some reason and would like to join, just send me an e-mail (jalbert@uvic.ca). > Here's the tentative agenda: > > I) Flight plans > II) Lab calibration and observation tests > III) Diffused light source and its modelling, pre- and post-flight calibration, and goniometric calibrations > IV) Nanosat solid models & Houman's thesis > V) Computing/website > VI) Grant applications > VII) AOB > > Talk to you all tomorrow, thanks! > justin > Attachments: http://projectaltair.org/HyperNews/get/AUX/2012/11/12/18.02-43361-Schedule-20120702_hqp.pdf http://projectaltair.org/HyperNews/get/AUX/2015/08/18/08.29-60788-ionDeadlines_Fall2015.pdf