Here are the minutes of our meeting yesterday -- please just reply with (or let me know) any corrections -- thanks!:
Phoning in: Yorke Brown (Dartmouth/Harvard), Houman Hakima (Toronto SFL), Karun Thanjavur (UVic), Keith Vanderlinde (Toronto), Max Fagin (Purdue) -- and apologies from Cordell Grant (UTIAS-SFL)
We started with a debrief of our work the day before yesterday. Yorke and I started Wednesday just before 4 am setting up for a daytime flight and telescope observation of the payload (the LED beacon payload, rather than the full lightsource). The LX200 telescope has a fairly narrow field of view (15 arcminutes), so a star alignment is necessary if we want to be able to observe and track the payload in flight. Unfortunately, between 4 and 5 am, clouds quickly rolled in and the sky very quickly because overcast before we could even set the telescope up -- this was completely unpredicted by the weather report (which had predicted 40% cloud cover), thus preventing our doing a star alignment. Without having a star alignment, there was no way to do tracking or observing with the necessary precision for the 4.4 mrad = 15 arcminute field of view of the telescope (*). Since this flight was to test the tracking, the lack of an alignment and the clouds took away the entire motivation for this flight -- there was no way to observe it. However, we then made very nice lemonade from the weather lemons, by setting up for and doing a tethered balloon flight to test the parafoil. The newly-purchased parafoil (not the old parafoil) had previously been tested largely-successfully by being thrown from buildings with the dummy payload, but those are not great tests, since the payload tends to come back and hit the building, and it is not very high so the chute doesn't have enough time to open properly, etc. So we took a tethered balloon up to 150' above Garipay Field in Hanover NH and did tests of (first) the dummy payload, then the real payload, and the new parafoil and steering worked absolutely beautifully for each of the four drops we got in before the balloon happened to burst. So the parafoil and steering are now ready for prime time -- a free balloon flight, which we will hopefully get off this weekend, when the weather forecast looks good!
The weather forecast for this weekend presently looks quite good (rain from now until then, but good this weekend), so we will very hopefully get off a flight on Saturday or Sunday. The flight which we intend to make will test telescope observation and tracking of the payload, very hopefully at night -- assuming the weather is good at night as well as the daytime -- and also the parafoil performance from a free balloon flight. We'll fly the LED beacon, and if observation and tracking of the LED beacon work well, then our next flight after that -- very hopefully next week -- can then test observation of the actual light source payload in flight.
Calibration-wise, Karun has returned from observing at Keck and is working on both the Modtran (and other atmosphere codes) + Pan-STARRS simulation of ALTAIR images, as well as the goniometric and pre- and post-flight calibration hardware and software. Arnold is currently using the primary goniometric calibration setup at NRC to calibrate a set of standard LEDs, and should be ready for some first tests with the source and integrating sphere late this month or next.
Houman Hakima, Cordell's new student, is working on nanosat design next steps. He is starting there by designing the mechanical outline of the new multicolour laser module that will incorporate each of the present laser modules into a single module. He'll be working on this in collaboration with the manufacturer (World Star Tech), and this will get us some nice 3-D solid model renderings to put in our DND-NSERC grant request for construction of (two of) these new modules. The mechanical outline for the multicolour module will very hopefully end up suitable for both the nanosat as well as future balloon payloads. (Note that the two sets of laser wavelengths might not end up being completely identical [they will undoubtedly overlap, but won't necessarily be identical], but hopefully the mechanical outline can remain the same. In general the nanosat just has tighter mechanical and electrical constraints than the balloon payloads, as one might expect.)
On computing/website, things appear stable -- please just either post a note or let me know if any fixes or changes are needed.
On upcoming grant applications, the scaled-down DND-NSERC grant proposal with World Star Tech is essentially completed and mainly just needs a drawing or two of the multicolour module that we are proposing from Houman. There also will be a CFI (Canada Foundation for Innovation) competition later this year and early next year. This CFI competition is intended for large projects -- the expected budgets for proposals in this CFI program are between $2.5M and $10M, which at first glance would put us at a disadvantage compared with larger projects. I've talked with colleagues (Stubbs, Carlberg, and Pritchet) and we think that combining with a proposal for Canadian participation in MS-DESI (a baryon acoustic oscillation spectroscopic survey using the Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak) is looking like the best way to go. The internal UVic NOI is due in September and the internal UVic proposal is due in October, and the actual CFI external proposal will be in January or so of the coming year. Yorke is also talking with the JPL folks again regarding upcoming NASA grant opportunities.
In additional news, Keith's group is working on the microwave payload, and the aim is to have a device that can be brought down to the South Pole and used and tested as a ground-based (not flown) calibration source for SPT this coming austral summer. (And the austral summer after that, i.e. end 2014 - beginning 2015, it hopefully could be flown at the Pole.) And James's group is planning to do a flight today, weather permitting, to test payload motion control and stabilization -- very greatly looking forward to seeing the outcome of that.
That's all I remember, please send things I forgot. Next telecon in 2 weeks, on Thurs., Aug. 22, at the regular 11:00 Eastern time.
cheers, thanks all! justin
(*) In principle, one could precisely align the telescope without observing any stars, by placing the payload on top of two hills, at known GPS coordinates, from 1 to 50 km distant from the telescope, and treating those payload coordinates as "stars" and observing and aligning to them. This, however, (in addition to the pre-flight logistics), would require adding to the Meade software's list of alignment stars. (One can easily add a "user object" to the telescope's star catalogue, but there is no simple way to make it to treat that object as something one can align to.) It's certainly in principle possible, however (Meade in fact supplies occasional updates to its list of objects to observe, via its website), but one would need to get an update file in Meade's proprietary update file format, and they don't say how to do that. Probably best for now to just wait for a clear enough night -- since most of the time when no stars are visible, due to an overcast sky, there is also some threat of rain, and we of course can't fly in the rain anyway.
On Thu, 08 Aug 2013 00:55:53 GMT, Justin Albert wrote:
> Hi, > > Telecon tomorrow (Thursday Aug. 8) at our regular time of 11:00 am > Eastern time (8 am Pacific, 17.00 European). Discussion items include: > debrief from today's very successful drop test (but aborted flight, due > to low cloud cover), flight readiness & weather forecasts, remaining > science-flight-critical and other work, goniometric calibration, pre- > and post-flight calibration, nanosat (and new multicolour laser module) > design, computing/website, upcoming grant applications, and recap of > flight plans. A reminder of the CSA project timeline is attached. > > Here's the dial-in info: If you are calling in from Canada or U.S.: > 1. Dial Toll-Free Number: 866-740-1260 (U.S. & Canada) > 2. Enter 7-digit access code: 5082741 followed by the # > > If you are calling in from elsewhere: > 1. To locate International Toll-Free Numbers go to > http://www.readytalk.com/intl (enter 7-digit access code 5082741) > 2. Dial toll free number from web link > 3. Enter Passcode: Enter 7-digit ACCESS CODE: 5082741 followed by the # > > Here's the tentative agenda: > I) Debrief from the successful parafoil drop test -- Yorke & Max's steering now works! (*) > II) Flight readiness + weather forecasts, + critical hardware work to do during the rain > III) Pre- and post-flight calibration and goniometric calibrations > IV) Science flight plans > V) Nanosat -- and new multicolour laser module -- design > VI) Computing/website > VII) Upcoming grant application status > VIII) AOB > > Talk to you all tomorrow! > justin > > (*) A fun movie at > https://particle.phys.uvic.ca/~jalbert/ParafoilDrop.MOV (the parafoil > and payload were fine after Yorke recovered them from the top of the > flagpole, despite my worried epithet!), and photos at > https://particle.phys.uvic.ca/~jalbert/ParafoilDropPics/ > > Attachments: > http://projectaltair.org/HyperNews/get/AUX/2012/11/12/18.02-43361-Schedule-20120702_hqp.pdf >