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LOHAN's final test flight set to honour PRATCHETT

Reader acronym poll firmly backs the late and great Sir Terry

Our search for a suitably snappy title for our forthcoming final Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) test flight has ended agreeably with a reader poll coming down firmly in support of PRATCHETT.

Alex Carlton's "Planes Reactive Airborne Tests Checking Heuristically for Extreme Technological Tantrums" ran away with the vote, and his tribute to the late and great Discworld author Sir Terry has secured him a brand spanking new RockBLOCK Mk2 Iridium satellite comms unit, courtesy of our mates at Rock Seven.

The RockBLOCK Mk2

The PRATCHETT mission will see our US allies at Edge Research Laboratory sending a Vulture 2 spaceplane avionics rig stratowards, to see both how the kit handles the cold at altitude, and to test a hook-up of the 900MHz ultra long range radio rig.

We'll bring you details closer to the (as yet undecided) date, and in the meantime raise the traditional glass or two to Alex Carlton, Rock Seven, all of you who participated and, of course, Sir Terry Pratchett. ®


The Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator, sponsored by...

  • EXASOL logo
  • Pulse_Eight
  • SecQuest logo
  • Lucidica logo
  • NXT logo

...and with the invaluable support of...

  • Edge Research Laboratory logo
  • Space Graphic Solutions logo
  • 3D Robotics logo
  • 3T RPD logo
  • University of Southampton logo
  • Applied Vacuum Engineering logo
  • Escher Technologies
  • Flashpoint Fireworks logo
  • HAB Supplies logo
  • Rock 7 logo
  • Random Engineering logo

More from the lovely LOHAN:

  • You can find full LOHAN coverage right here.
  • If you're new to LOHAN, seek out our mission summary for enlightenment.
  • There are photos our our magnificent Vulture 2 spaceplane here, and detailed structural plans here.
  • For your further viewing pleasure, we have all our photographic material stored on Flickr.
  • Our LOHAN and Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) videos live on YouTube.
  • We sometimes indulge in light consensual tweeting, as you can see here.

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