HAPS-1, UMSFB1 redux Options

[djellison]

Next weekend, if everything goes well, a 15x30cm carbon deck will fly onboard HAPS-1 -http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/wiki/doku.php/missions:haps:haps-1

One end of the deck will be the flight radio, the other is my responsibility, a single camera (Powershot A560 ), stand alone GPS logger (to 18km), and a small wide angle mirror so the camera can see the payload, the chute and the envelope above.

Still working on a hacked firmware for the A560 - but the intention is every minute will include 15s of video, and then 5-10 stills in fairly quick succession - with the hope that the rotation of the balloon will give us some mosaics out of each section.

More details, some photos etc, later in the week.

[djellison]

Right - 0640 - early start - I'm packing up the car and heading out to Cambridge. Keep an eye on http://spacenear.us/tracker/ for tweets, possibly ustream, hopefully live tracking, and an IRC channel. The 'live' images from the top are a pre-loaded jpg, but overlayed with realtime time/gps/altitude data from the payload downlinked as SSTV (couldn't get a webcam / hacked canon to work properly in time to take images for that)

I have the A560 with it's firmware ready to go ( 10s of 320 x 240 x 15fps, then 5 stills, then 30s sleep - looped ) - and a backup A550 with just a 20s looping one image script ready to put on instead if the A560 dies during launch prep ( only one will launch )

The uStreamage will probably be from me ( if it works ) on my Macbook Pro - so I'll try and show you all the things happening after launch - and even try and get the launch itself, but I'll be busy doing launch preps so no promises there.

Doug