Ballonguppslappningsplan

Thursday, May 25, 2006

It's still quite cold, in the upper 30's, and overcast. We had some light snow in the air early in the morning. The daily weather briefings haven't been very promising, but there's a chance that things will clear up enough to launch the first balloon payload (AESOP) tomorrow. Here's a view looking across the balloon launch area toward the two sounding rocket launchers.

The ULDB balloon crate was opened today and the aft and apex plates were brought out for work to begin soon. I finished tested the autovalve function on the new CAP prototype and helped with video transmitter checkout for CosmoCam. During the flight, CosmoCam will show live video over the Internet from the payload within line-of-sight radio range (200 miles). For, now it is looking around the integration area from the payload, spying on all of us! Check out the link and you may see me wandering around. There's also a webcam from the top of the building looking out over the balloon launch field (or "Ballonguppslappningsplan" in Swedish).