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Highlights of recent developments on the MiniSShot Project
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-Here are some more photos of last Sunday's propellant casting session
(courtesy Rick Maschek):
Loading propellant into one of the casting tubes:
http://www.sugarshot.org/downloads/dsc07084-lo.jpg
Brent Dougherty manning the backup "vibrator" after failure of the
vibration table motor:
http://www.sugarshot.org/downloads/dsc07087-lo.jpg
Chris King has his turn of manning the backup vibrator:
http://www.sugarshot.org/downloads/dsc07089-lo.jpg
View down the core of one of the grain segments:
http://www.sugarshot.org/downloads/good_core-lo.jpg
View of the grain bottoms:
http://www.sugarshot.org/downloads/bottoms-lo.jpg
The region around the cores were chipped during coring rod removal. The
reason has been identified and will be rectified for the next casting
session.
-A Skype telecon was held on Wednesday (Sept.3rd) between members of the
Propellant Group (Rick Maschek, Richard Nakka, Brent Dougherty, Matt
Campbell, Chris King & Sam Grado). This was a debriefing to discuss the
latest casting session and to determine what went well and what did not.
It was a very informative telecon and many action items were assigned to
improve the process and logistics for the next casting session that will
take place Oct.18-19 in preparation for the MiniSShot motor firing that
will take place one week later.
-A Skype telecon was held on Saturday (Sept.6th) between members of the
Propulsion Group (Rick Maschek, Richard Nakka, Brent Dougherty, Matt
Campbell & Chris King). This was a planning session to prepare for the
upcoming static firing of the ProtoSShot-M "Short Stack" motor on
September 21st.
-The pressure transducer that will be used for the upcoming ProtoSShot
"Short Stack" test underwent calibration in Richard's workshop:
http://www.sugarshot.org/downloads/pressuretransducer_calib002a.jpg
http://www.sugarshot.org/downloads/pressuretransducer_calib006a.jpg
http://www.sugarshot.org/downloads/pressuretransducer_calib005a.jpg
- Chris King reports that assembly of the 10VDC power supply and
calibration unit for the button load cell is completed, and it appears
to work satisfactorily. Detail testing and evaluation with the load cell
connected will take place in the near future to work out any bugs. Chris
will be modifying the unit to add a 5VDC power supply for the pressure
transducer.
Chris also reports that the "Go-High Avionics Rocket (GHATR)", which
will be used to flight-test our Chute Controller, is about 80%
complete. This rocket is a modified Firestorm 54. The hoped for altitude
is in excess of 10,000 feet.
Additionally, Chris reports that he has received (fully intact) the
Chute Controller from Hans, sent recently from Denmark. Chris has
successfully communicated with it using his laptop PC. It appears to
operate as described in the manual.
-Rick Maschek reports that he will be doing a flight-test of the
Recovery System for the MiniSShot at MTA when we do the short stack
motor test and again (with improvements if needed) a week later at Balls 17.
-Hans reports that the Thermal Sensor board, sent recently by Andre in
Brazil, safely arrived this week.
-The "Launch Pad" fund raising campaign has wrapped up, and was a
roaring success..a huge thank you to all those who helped out in this
endeavour ! Final tally is $1690. This success represents an important
milestone in the SS2S program.
http://www.sugarshot.org/fundraiser.html
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