Double Bummer, Hyper-GeoCam worked only for 20 minutes

For some reason this is the last image we obtained from Hyper-GeoCam. The balloon was only about 1 km up.

Bummer, GeoCam is out !

The mud did not do it. It looks like the mechanical finger did not work as intended and we have only one photo of the flight: the tarmac.



The file listing on the SD card clearly shows that on July 27th, at integration, the mechanism for shotting the camera was working but that the day before the launch and the launch day, whenever GeoCam would be activated it would take only one picture. Bummer.




We are looking at Hyper-GeoCam now. The 16 GB card is so large that when looking at the file directory through the USB 1.1 connector we cannot see the .RAW images until the camera downloads all of them which takes a certain amount of time. Initially we were thinking that camera had not taken any shots.

Ouch, GeoCam fell into the mud

As noted by the HASP folks, one of our payload fell into the mud. We just got the cameras this morning and found out it was GeoCam. Hyper-GeoCam is fine. Now we need to open the boxes and find out if there is anything in either of them....

Landing in the Mud

From Greg Guzik:

September 4, 2007: HASP 2007 RECOVERY SUCCESSFUL: HASP was successfully
recovery from a freshly irregated farm field near Poston, AZ during the morning of September 3. In the words of one of the CSBF managers, "You had a very soft landing!" The recovery crew returned HASP to Ft. Sumner by late afternoon of September 4, where we had a first look at the landing damage. Almost all of the student payloads appeared to have suffered very little injury during landing and recovery. The recovery crew removed most of the small payloads from the fiberglass extension booms and dismounted the UAH, MSU and ULL large payload prior to dragging HASP out of the field. They even managed to fish out from the mud one of the TAMU cameras that had broken off during landing. The HASP electronics system appeared very clean with no obvious evidence of water damage or extensive mud intrusion into the interior. Once HASP is returned to LSU next week, we will be able to do a more through assessment.

Images of the Recovery can be found here
[http://laspace.lsu.edu/hasp/images/2006-2007/09-04-07]

College Station, HASP has landed.

From the HASP website:

CURRENT HASP STATUS 08:15 UTC September 3, 2007:

The HASP flight was terminated at 1:52 am today (7:52 UTC)
near Poston, AZ (near the California border).  The flight
had 14 hours and 22 minutes of float and lasted close to
19 hours.

From the GPS tracking site, that would be about 6.55 miles away from the California border. Congratulations to the HASP team.

what a beautiful view

From 120,000 feet.

It's up

Greg Guzik said:

HASP was launched this morning at 7:12 am Mountain time (13:12 UTC). The launch was almost perfect and the payload is working well. Currently, HASP is approaching 30,000 feet altitude.

Ready to launch

From Greg Guzik:

HASP is now in the pickup process and we should be heading out to the launch pad shortly. No thunderstorms in the area and the winds are looking very good. We anticipate a launch sometime around 7:00 am Mountain time.

Fingers crossed.

Maybe tomorrow ?

Greg just sent this:

The HASP launch has been scrubbed for today. The low altitude wind profile remained unacceptable with winds exceeding 10 knots. On the positive side the next two days are launch opportunities. Thus, we will begin this show again at 3:00 am tomorrow Sunday, September 2.

HASP2007 launch today ?

From Greg Guzik:

HASP will make a launch attempt tomorrow, Saturday September 1, 2007. The anticipate launch time is 7:30 am Mountain time (i.e. 13:30 UTC), but this could be earlier or later depending upon weather and readiness. The HASP team will arrive at the flight line at about 2:30 am and pickup is scheduled for about 3:30 am. Attached here is our working pre-launch timeline. This will give you an idea of what should be happening at what time. The real times for these events will very likely not correspond exactly with the times listed in the chart.



As I have the time, I will be posting status updates on the main page of the HASP website. You can also monitor the CosmoCam video which will be available on and off during flight prep. You can also view CSBF video and tracking at http://towerfts.csbf.nasa.gov/

Our fingers are doubly crossed.

Thank you Highly qualified HASP personnel !

From the HASP announcement page:

August 28, 2007: HASP MECHANICAL INTEGRATION: The primary event today was mechanically attaching HASP to the mini-SIP frame and control system. In addition, the mini-SIP was prepared for flight and initial communication tests between HASP and the mini-SIP were successful. Finally, the Hyper-GEOCAM group requested a configuration change to their camera. Highly qualified HASP personnel were able to open the delicate Hyper-GEOCAM payload box and perform the requested change (see daily images).

HASP weather estimates

From Greg Guzik:

Today's weather briefing indicates strong winds building over the weekend and lasting to mid-week next week. Our only near term launch opportunity will be dawn on Saturday, September 1. If we can not make that launch, then the next opportunity may not be until Wednesday or Thursday next week. Thus, we are now planning to complete the compatibility testing on Friday, August 31 and look at launching HASP at dawn on Saturday, September 1.

Tomorrow morning, CSBF will be launching a test of the 37 heavy balloon. You should be able to follow this launch from the CSBF website at http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/ . The scheduled launch time for the 37H is 7:30 am.

HASP 2006 on video and HASP 2007 on schedule

Found two videos of the HASP 2006, taken from the CosmoCam a webcam embarked on our HASP flight, enjoy:






The news from HASP 2007:

CURRENT HASP STATUS 13:10 UTC August 27, 2007: Mike Stewart and Greg Guzik have arrived at the flightline in Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. Today will be devoted to locateing all the HASP equipment, unpacking, setting up our control system, and assembling / checking the HASP ballooncraft. So far the weather here has been clear and pleasant, but it is too early to make any reliable predictions about launch
opportunities.

GeoCam and Hyper-GeoCam are ready to fly.

We passed the qualification and are currently on-board HASP 2007. Stay tuned. Thank you John.

Integration of our new payloads will take place

in Palestine, TX on July 27th.

The stickiness of panoramic views

Roland Piquepaille did an entry on his blog about us. It is located here and here. It seems to have led to other people noticing this site like the Digital Photography Review. Both entries are leading different types of people to our site. The interesting part of these statistics figures is the stickiness of the panorama site on the two crowds. The ratio between page views and visits is pretty high at about 3.6 to 4.0 according to Google Analytics.