Here are minutes of our telecon this past Thursday Jan. 14 -- please just reply with (or let me know) any corrections -- thanks!:
Attendees: Yorke Brown (Dartmouth), Max Fagin (just graduated from Purdue), Arnold Gaertner (NRC)
The ALTAIR Meade 12" LX200-GPS telescope (owned by Harvard) for which the computer control and display (which controls, and monitors, the slewing and tracking motors on its alt-az mount), stopped functioning at the beginning of December, is still there in Yorke's lab at Dartmouth. Yorke will likely send it to Meade to get it repaired (on Chris Stubbs' kindly proffered tab, as he is the owner) before the end of this month. First, though, Yorke might conceivably try another attempt at uploading new firmware to it from a different computer, as the Meade firmware bootloader would not work on the computer that Yorke first tried to do the updated firmware upload from, in early December.
I've contacted the SPOT LLC company (subsidiary of the Globalstar satellite network company) regarding a request for their potential sponsorship of (and, thus, their potentially donating SPOT Traces to) the educational side-project for the upcoming NATO SPS application, in which classrooms in elementary and high schools could launch company-donated SPOT Traces using party balloons, and track them to learn more about winds at different levels in Earth's atmosphere. Their auto-reply message said that they should reply within 4 weeks (i.e., by early February).
Karun has a copy of the diffusive light source which Yorke sent up from Hanover -- Karun is leading the development 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) at UVic 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, to use for testing motor control for an ALTAIR motor and propulsion control microcontroller board we will be designing this term. He has now gotten the pulse width modulation code for it up and running -- video at
https://particle.phys.uvic.ca/~jalbert/MotorAndPropTests/IMG_2136.MOV
and now Karun has also solved the problem of simultaneous control of two propulsion motors, and of controlling a servo as well as propulsion motors. He's now working on monitoring the input from the on-chip A/D converters (which will be monitoring temperatures, motor RPM rates, and current flow). We just purchased a second little PIC microcontroller board: http://www.digikey.ca/product-search/en/programmers-development-systems/accessories/2621524?k=PIC18F97J94 with a more advanced version of the PIC18F87J50 -- the PIC18F97J94 -- so that we can test out that new one as well before we make our custom board with it. We also have the beginnings of a little mechanical test rig, the internals and externals of which can be found in the four attached photos, and in the following movie showing the lightweight but strong servo gearbox for rotation of the propulsion support axle:
https://particle.phys.uvic.ca/~jalbert/MotorAndPropTests/IMG_2145.MOV
and now the setup is all together, and just waiting for monitoring sensors (motor RPM, current, temperature) and microcontroller control:
https://particle.phys.uvic.ca/~jalbert/MotorAndPropTests/IMG_2198.MOV
When within ALTAIR, 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.)
Regarding simulation of the above, James Hartwick (senior undergrad here at UVic, who has done an enormous amount for ALTAIR, including much of the current projectaltair.org website, light source work, etc) has now written an ALTAIR flight propulsion control and simulation program, which includes GFS (global forecast system) file input, for both forecast and real-time information of winds at all points in Earth's atmosphere. We'll have plots, images, and data from his software coming up very soon.
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 sent in our CSA FAST 2015 application in October, and the next ones will be a NATO "Science for Peace and Security" application which will be due at the beginning of _May_, and additionally also a possible CFI application this year (with multiple university-internal and external due dates).
That's all I remember, please send things that I forgot. Next telecon next week, on Thursday, Jan. 28, at 4 pm Eastern time.
cheers, thanks all! justin
On Thu, 14 Jan 2016 01:04:55 GMT, Justin Albert wrote:
> Hi! > > Telecon tomorrow (Jan. 14) at the usual time: 4:00 pm Eastern (1:00 pm > Pacific, 10:00 am Hawaii, 22.00 European). Discussion items include: > flight planning; Meade telescope(s) status and tests; light sources and > light source modelling; goniometric and pre- and post-flight > calibration; propulsion work; 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 (4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific). > 4) If there is any trouble, or if you don't get a Skype-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 planning > II) Telescope tests, and current status > III) Diffused light source, and its modelling, pre- and post-flight calibration, and goniometric calibrations > IV) Propulsion & motor control work > V) Nanosat solid models & Houman's thesis > VI) Computing/website > VII) Grant applications > VIII)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 >