"Maybe perchlorate" isn't news. But with some nonsense from whereever it came saying there was some sort of news, probably negative toward life, getting briefed at the WH - they had to say something. The fact that a) The perchlorate is not a revelation of any sort for or against life and There was no whitehouse briefing.... the ENTIRE issue is about nothing. The only issue remaining is how or why the rumour got to CC in the first place.

What next, a press conference for every time the temperature is -30 during the day?

Doug

The pH was an easy thing to judge. Ditto water. They're a 'Here it is' sort of experiment.

The Perchlorates were not - they take time to figure out, experimentation in labs to match the results. Remember - they're still not confirmed - they're just the current hypothesis - and it's a hypothesis they wouldn't have shared with us were it not for the entire CC issue. Sharing the scientific process with an instrument like MECA just isn't the right way of going about things, but their hand has been forced in this instance.

Two week pushback to - Aug 23rd. Short term forecast is for high ground winds - which are not good for launching on Sat.

It means I can do more testing, possibly get a 2nd camera in there, etc etc.

I think you're trying to make more out of this than there is, assuming they knew more than they did at any one time.

pH and water are easy public consumption issues, and were high-confidence-results from the get-go. It's water, it's battery acid, it's bleach - they can 'get' that nice an easy.

Perchlorates, whilst interesting and fascinating in their own way, don't mean a damn thing to joe-public - notice the press - half of them saying it's devastating for life ( when it isn't ) and so on. Furthermore, it wasn't at the same high confidence of the pH and water results.

Although - that would suggest there's a bit more video to come

Seems plausable, fixable.

Onward!

Come on Mike - that's not exactly fair. Sometimes, even though the talent is there, the time or money to do something isn't. Surely you more than most here, should understand that.

DOug

It'll be JPG's - and they'll be going online as soon as I can get them there. If everything is nominal, then Sat night.

An overnight test with Lithium AA cells, had the script running for 5 hrs, taking 2023 images, before filling the card and stopping, and the battery is still going strong.


Doug

OK - no video I"m afraid. The hacked firmware for that just isn't working, and I want an all-night test running just stills. If a miracle happens and I get some CHDK help in the next 24 hrs I may change my mind on this, but it's unlikely...I'd rather be confident of good stills.

Currently - the sequence is this

8 stills ( which takes 30 secs)
Sleep 30s
repeat.

Tomorrow - I decide to use or not use the .45x wide angle adaptor, and placement, if any, of the wide angle mirror.

D

I actually bought some AAA powered gloves - it's a thought for next-time around

I simply 'got a ride' with people who know what they're doing - namely James Coxon and friends ( http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/wiki/doku.php )

I emailed them and just went over to watch them do some cool things ( drop a parafoil type vehicle from under a balloon, then two normal launches ) - and on the two normal launches, the camera was hung under the gondola, which was under the radio payload. I commented that I'd tried to have a go myself but found it too damn complicated, and then commented that perhaps the camera payload wasn't the best way of doing it - so James basically said 'think you can do better...go on then!'. And so here we are

I promise - some pictures before it goes up - it's not pretty, but it should work

I've looked at the hand-warmer thing - but actually too hot - and they can expand as well - they're a small bag, and taking a bag to 10mbar could burst it, dumping hot chemical gooo all over the camera etc. You have to be careful to use open-cell foam or it can pop-corn all over the place. Bubble wrap can burst as well.

On the LV though- while PHX was inside its aeroshell and the RA was in it's bio-barrier. I'd be astonished if you could explain way this via rocket contamination.

Doug

Essentially there's not a lot we can do about that... what we CAN do, we do do...

Use Lithium AA cells which dont drop off at cold temps (http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/l91.pdf - OK to -40deg - very expensive at £1 each roughly, but worth every penny)
Give the camera quite a lot of work to do (hence the 4gb card, I intend to fill it on a schedule of 3hrs) thusdumping the 9 whrs of energy from the two cells about as rapidly as possible into the camera which will render itself as heat.
Insulated as well as I can in foam (although the fact that the lens 'opens' means it's not even slightly sealed around the front)
And a 'get up and get down' flight plan to avoid lingering at altitude.

The first, third and last of those has been enough for similar flights in the past.

I feel sorry for the GPS logger on top of the foam -it's only going to have a layer of duct tape between it and the hell outside BUT - thermally speaking, the camera will be a warm glow underneath.

Doing something as simple as a pair of 9v cells dumping to a thin film heating element is just too much complexity and mass. If we mature the project to go for high altitudes or lingering, then I will be aiming to disable the camera's motor-driver lens deployment, keep it stuck out, and match foam around the lens to better insulate.

Of all the things that could go wrong - the camera getting too chilly isn't top of the list by a long long way. DOing it this way has worked for lots of other projects, so I'm happy to go that way. Next time around maybe we log temps internally on the camera, externally on the foam and then in free air under the balloon - using a Picaxe kit or similar.

It's worth mentioning though, that for perhaps 10 minutes, maybe half an hour, this whole schbang will be at 10mbars or less, at -50 degrees, with lots of UV radiation.

Remind you of anywhere

Doug

That's a free radical though isn't it?

'Radical' in the chemical sense - it's a term that means couple of atoms that make up part of a bigger molecule... i.e. perchlorate is usually part of aluminium perchlorate or other perchlorates.

The 'flight' SD card ( and a flight spare ) have arrived - the Sandisk Extremem III 4gb SDHC card.

From Sandisk.com


OK - not the -50 we may see on flight - and sadly we wont get values for the flight min/max temp (next time maybe) - but it's the sensible option just to get the most robust card I can reasonably find.

After the joy of 200hz Phoenix EDL data - I desperately want to log Acceleration for the next flight. The motherboard doing the work on the avionics side has an accelerometer, but it's very much KISS this flight, and no data volume to save such a a large data set either - but I'm going to push to try and achieve that next time around.

Foam enclosure is finished, deck has foam underneath as a stand-off on which the 1/4 wavelength antenna will go.

All credit to the RPC-IES team for delivering to the PDS - what we really want is Osiris and CIVA though

Given that the heatshield is already some distance from the backshell, yeah - that altitude figure must be wrong.

OR

Perhaps that's when the image started being taken? HiRISE swoops out an image over time...but I don't think it's that long.

Doug

If you can export to 3DS with animation - hint hint - let me know



Back shell gyro compared to lander gyro - assuming they're separate like MER?

Kwan - Hosting, I can sort for you, no problem. (drop me an email - djellison@mac.com ) It's an AMAZING video...just bloody amazing! What was it rendered in - and where did the models come from -they're very good indeed!

I can imagine tying that into the sort of rendering I did for the those HiRISE DEM animations for a stunning end result!

Doug

What on earth was John doing on the wrong side of the pond

I think those wibbley wobbles that persist after landing are a symptom of whatever did these measurements - that's its noise floor.

Doug

PHX doesn't do DTE But Earth on Sol 69 is moving from 4.7 degrees above the Northern horizon at 10pm local, to 47.8 degrees above the Southern Horizon at 10AM local

They've have landed quite some time afterwards, a minute or so ( only 40 seconds to land by Phoenix, and with Phoenix off the backshell, the parachute and backshell have a lot of drag for not a lot of mass ) - and with a comparatively gentle touchdown - certainly not that second peak.

Doug