Nova 8 / HAPS-D, Last minute bolt-on - sunrise from altitude Options

[djellison]

"We're launching tomorrow morning' says Ed.
"Shame I can't make it, I have to be at work" says I.
"At 3 am" says Ed
"Hmmm" says I

Long story short - hopefully a reflight of the HAPS1 A560 tomorrow - at dawn - with recovery in time for me to get back to Leicester in time for work. Ed will fill you in on the rest of the payload. He's an engineer - I'm just a temperamental artist.

Obviously - anyone with half a brain will be fast asleep, so may not be any/many live updates. Possibly live tracking, maybe uStream while we're setting up.

The real problem is the toxicology involved in staying up all night with caffeine based beverages.


(For people just finding this thread...

Movies from the Nova 8 camera

http://vimeo.com/1628664 Ascent Part 1
http://vimeo.com/1628493 Ascent Part 2
http://vimeo.com/1628497 Ascent Part 3
http://vimeo.com/1628414 Descent


Movies from the HAPS-D camera

http://vimeo.com/1628947 Ascent Part 1
http://vimeo.com/1628809 Ascent Part 2
http://vimeo.com/1628810 Ascent Part 3
http://vimeo.com/1626812 Descent


http://vimeo.com/1628991 All of the still images at 6fps from the HAPS-D camera
http://vimeo.com/1629086 All of the still images at 6fps from the Nova 8 camera
Download the MOV from bottom right on these - and you can essentially scrub your way thru all the images at quite a reasonable resolution.

[Astro0]

Hang on Badger, nearly there!

[centsworth_II]

I'm sure it's down and hopefully soon will be in the clutches of it's rightful owners. I suspect the position updates were stopped to help ensure this.

[djellison]

Well - I gave up the chase after the first 40 minute drive south - I couldn't hang around any more with work to get back for.

BUT

Spoke to Ed - they have eyes on the payload on the ground near Bicknacre. He promises a call once they get to it and inspect the result.

I think we probably tried to put too much onto it - hence the rather slow ascent and thus quite a long ride. A little bit worried about the duration of the flight. I cranked up the 'mb/minute' as it were, on the script....but it will have done 3-4 hours on the card.

[djellison]

Just got off the phone from Ed. He's essentially speechless. He didn't know what to say - but 'awesome' and 'amazing' were used more than once.

So net result.... it worked, and beautifully.

They've got to get back to Cambridge (a couple of hours) and then we'll get a few tasters.

[jamescanvin]

Great.

If there is any chance of getting the whole lot online today (set up ftp and then go to bed!) then I have 4-5 hours this evening with nothing currently to do.

[djellison]

Hang on Badger, nearly there!

The badger icon on the actual PCB is the very same Badger of Badger-Badger-Badger fame as in that picture

[djellison]

If there is any chance of getting the whole lot online today

Fingers crossed - it's going to go up from a .ac.uk connection.

For reasons of pure server practicaltiy - I'm going to hand the complete data set over to James (for obvious reasons ) - but I want to ask for restraint from everyone else. I will put ALL the movies onto the web via Youtube and Vimeo, and I will put lots of stills up here and elsewhere. But it's simply not sensible or sustainable to say "come on down, get the whole 7 gig" to a large number of people. I hope people understand. It's not about being a bit 'ESA' with the data - I'll do my best to use whatever sensible means there are for everyone to see as much of it as possible - but if I call an open-house on it all, the people who really need it, wont be able to get it, and so the beautiful pans etc wont be as rapidly forthcoming.

Doug

[djellison]

Once all the stills are down and the movies are down, I'll sort out something on Vimeo for you to start seing it. There's a LOT of very dark, very blurred frames ( so people who want to download them all just as a matter of stamp-collecting would be wasting their time) - however later on there are some great images - such as this one.

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Astro0]

Doug - "The badger icon on the actual PCB is the very same Badger of Badger-Badger-Badger fame as in that picture".

That's an amazing coincidence. I just picked him from a random Google search because he was cute.
Well done to Ed and Doug and everyone who worked on this project. It was incredible to watch as events unfolded.
It'd be kinda nice if we could have Google Maps giving up to the moment movements on the Rovers (although at times there'd be little movement of course!)

I just thought I'd post this desktop wallpaper tribute to Badger for all the team. Thanks for a fascinating day.
Can't wait to see the movies and images.


Astro0

[djellison]

It could take ages to sort through this lot - so I've just done an iWeb gallery of a bunch of nice stills from the flight.

http://gallery.me.com/djellison/100034

[Airbag]

Speechless...

Airbag

[ElkGroveDan]

such as this one.

That alone made the entire effort worthwhile. Just gorgeous!.

[PDP8E]

Doug,

I am very proud and amazed at the accomplishments UK Balloon Teams this past week... and to see these fabulous pictures is just a thrill.

Monitoring this flight across the globe in real time, pictures in near real time, telemetry for analysis...it is something I could not have dreamed of when I was a boy...or even your age!

You have talked the talk (unmanned space flight) and now you have walked the walk!

You Guys Rock

[Ant103]

Incredible and amazing
The images are gorgeous. We can see lights of cities at the ground, under clouds layer while at high altitude sun is rising .

[djellison]

We can see lights of cities at the ground

In some of the early movies - that's just about all you can see

Doug