LAUNCH DATE: August 17, 1996
LAUNCH TIME: 14:48 UTC
LAUNCH SITE: Pikes Peak Radio Control Club Airport (Here's a Map.)
LAUNCH SITE COORDINATES:
TRACK: unknown
Burst Time: 16:11 UTC
Burst Altitude: 88,328 ft. ASL
Touchdown Time: 16:48 UTC
Touchdown: (estimated from Marty's recap)
FLIGHT EXPERIMENT: Chaff dispenser
PROJECT INTEGRATOR: EOSS
FREQUENCIES:
by Marty Griffin, WA0GEHWell folks, another one up and another one down. 27 for 27.
The flight was launched, after some delay, at 8:48 and landed 10:48. It landed about 14 mi due south of the launch point which was in line with some of the 188 degree readings we were looking at earlier in the week. This landing put us at 13 mi SE of Falcon, 14 mi E of Security and 7 mi SW of Ellicott. The recovery teams were well located around the site and late bearings were in the .7 figure of merit. Recovery was complete at 11:20 with the spacecraft back on the road.
There was minimal GPS coming off the spacecraft, very little altitude info. The x-band repeater did not work and it is unknown if the chaff experiment worked with any success. The ATV pics showed excellent disbursement of chaff. AirOne did not fly due to restrictions in the airspace over Falcon AFB from which we landed about two miles (UGGHHH). All tracking, therefore was DF, and the teams did a great job. Let's hear it for reduntant systems!
Greg, I hope your talk went well and hope to see it on the front pages. I think Dole got more press.
Rick, thanks for the weather data, we were well positioned and all went well. Happy birthday.
Ann, hope you got some TV out of this .. see you Monday.
Marty