Here are minutes of our meeting on Thursday Oct. 8 -- please just reply with (or let me know) any corrections -- thanks!:
Attendees: Yorke Brown (Dartmouth), Arnold Gaertner (NRC), and Susana Deustua (STScI)
Yorke and Asher are still waiting for good weather in Hanover to fly ALTAIR 15 -- the weather in Hanover on weekends and Thursdays recently (the sets of times when teaching schedules permit Yorke and colleagues to fly) have still unfortunately been poor. ALTAIR is all buttoned up, ready to fly when weather and people are available, and the procedure manual is ready. Note that 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 July) just before the 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).
Karun has a copy of the diffusive light source which Yorke sent up from Hanover -- Karun is leading the development here at UVic of tripod-mounted devices to, in the field immediately before launch, and right after recovery, cross-check both photometry information, and yaw-pitch-roll information, from the ALTAIR gondola -- and having a copy of the diffusive light source is needed for the former. He is working with the machine shop (and the electronics shop) here to develop and construct those devices, which will be accurate & precise to 1% or so (note that photometry checks which will be more precise than that will be done in the lab, most precisely at NRC, and/or NIST -- however we want to have the ability to do quick cross-checks in the field immediately before and after flight).
Karun is also now working with a sample microcontroller board (with Microchip PIC18F87J50 microcontroller -- circuit diagram attached) from the electronic shop here, to use for testing motor control for an ALTAIR motor and propulsion control microcontroller board we will be designing this term. He is working on getting the pulse width modulation code for it up and running -- which needs a new cable which the electronics shop is now making -- and then we can try attaching one (and then two) of our motors and propellers. The motor and propulsion control microcontroller board will logic interface with Yorke's main board (in a similar way to how the present cutdown-motor control board interfaces with the main board. A separate propulsion battery will of course be carried.)
Houman will send Cordell and/or 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 all to get the JHU students' final writeup when you have a chance.
We just sent in our CSA FAST 2015 application on Thursday. The next Canadian grant application due will be an NSERC subatomic project grant due at the end of this month, which we'll be working hard on until then. A list of ALTAIR-relevant Canadian granting program due dates is also attached.
That's all I remember, please send things that I forgot. Next telecon this week, on Thursday, Oct. 22, at 4 pm Eastern time.
cheers, thanks all! justin
On Wed, 07 Oct 2015 22:35:18 GMT, Justin Albert wrote:
> Hi! > > Telecon tomorrow (Oct. 8) at the new usual time: 4:00 pm Eastern (1:00 > pm Pacific, 10:00 am Hawaii, 22.00 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/2015/10/04/14.03-62663-GPBoard.pdf
http://projectaltair.org/HyperNews/get/AUX/2015/08/18/08.29-60788-ionDeadlines_Fall2015.pdf