This article is more than 1 year old

LOHAN's Punch and Judy show is GO for Saturday

Roll up, roll up, for your live test flight details

The Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) "Punch" and "Judy" test flights are go for tomorrow (Saturday 5 April), and as ever we'll be streaming proceedings live over the interwebs so you make yourselves a nice cuppa, kick back and follow the action live from the comfort of your PC.

First up, we have the Punch rocket motor igniter test mission. On board will be the Special Project Electronic Altitude Release System (SPEARS) board, programmed to fire a small Cesaroni unit at 20,000m. Dave Akerman's Raspberry Picam rig will capture the action, and beam back images to terra firma.

The Punch payload box

The Punch payload will also have one of Anthony Stirk's new enhanced PAVA minitrackers as a back-up.

The second flight - Judy - is to test our Vulture 2 rocket motor heater rig at altitude. Expect drama as we use the Big Red Abort Switch To Release Aerial Payload (BRASTRAP) doomsday box to cut down the payload via the Iridium satellite network as soon as we're satisfied we've got enough data from the heater.

The Judy mission payload box, with rocket motor case, motor heater rig, and camera

Judy will pack one PAVA tracker, and all of the callsigns and frequencies are:

Punch

  • SPEARS: Callsign SPEARS, 434.075 MHz
  • PAVA: Callsign PUNCH, 434.495
  • Picam: Callsign RICHARD, frequency 434.525

Judy

  • PAVA: Callsign JUDY, frequency 434.493

As is customary, you'll be able to follow the flights on a map at spacenear.us, and the live vid stream from the ground will land here. Picam images will be available here.

We stick up a swift update on Saturday morning as soon as we're good to go, confirming callsigns and frequencies. Here's the view at Blighty's Baikonur this morning - our relocated launch site close to Ross-on-Wye:

The field behind Dave Akerman's house near Ross-on_wye

The weather doen't look too promising at the moment, but we're assured sunny spells tomorrow with a smidge of drizzle and winds from the southwest. See you then. ®


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.

LOHAN - A Special Projects Bureau production in association with...

  • 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
  • Space Graphic Solutions logo
  • 3D Robotics logo

Paper Aircraft Released Into Space

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like