Announcement for EOSS-43

note: The original announcement for this flight was lost. This is a recreation compiled on 18-March-2005. the recreation was prompted by the recent submission by Marty Griffin, WA0GEH, of documents pertaining to the flight.

Originally EOSS-43 was planned to be in support of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs with the Pioneer Astronautics payload as a secondary customer. Dr. Fosha's students, who flew on EOSS-42 had a few problems with integration and coupled with a bad flight path prediction the flight was scrubbed and eventually cancelled.

However, the Pioneer Mars Micro Balloon Experiment listed below became the primary payload customer and thus EOSS-43 actually did fly later in August of 2000.

Below is the original flight announcement and some emails that cover the basic plan.

LAUNCH DATE: July 29, 2000
LAUNCH TIME: 15:00 UTC - 09:00 MDT
LAUNCH SITE:

  • Pikes Peak Community College, (Tentative)
  • Located off the I-25 Interquest exit south of the north exit to the Air Force Academy

LAUNCH SITE COORDINATES:

  • Unknown

EXPECTED TRACK:

  • Between 80 degrees and 145 degrees azimuth

FREQUENCIES:

Preflight Foxhunter Net:

  • 147.225 MHz Colorado Repeater Association
  • 8:00PM the preceding night

Launch Site:

  • Simplex 146.550 MHz

Telemetry:

  • 144.340 MHz FM (1 Watt output)

Cross-Band Rptr:

  • 445.975 MHz input
  • 147.555 MHz output

APRS Output:

  • 147.555 MHz
  • Output on Crossband Repeater

ATV:

  • 426.250 MHz - NTSC video

Tracking Team:

  • 448.450 MHz Pikes Peak FM Association (PPFMA) (pending approval)
  • 146.58 MHz Simplex Field Frequency

HF Net:

  • 7.235 MHz, net control pending

PRIMARY INTEGRATOR:

  • University of Colorado - Colorado Springs (UCCS), Dr. Chuck Fosha and the HARP students

PRIMARY EXPERIMENT:

  • Third test of new "Shuttle" built by UCCS. Test of shuttle's flight worthiness, downlink telemetry, system control and ATV. The ATV will be used to monitor and confirm the success of the secondary experiment. Students plan to improve their Lab View program, generator power problems, video feeds, structural issues, and GPS altitude reporting.
  • Other objectives will be to familiarize and expose these students with flight operations in preparations for operating their own experiments in future flights.
  • Additionally, the students will learn to manipulate data (temperature, altitude, barometric pressure) into meaningful analysis, charts and reports. They will participate in pre-launch activity as well as the tracking processes. This is the third flight of this very improved shuttle.

SECONDARY INTEGRATOR:

  • Pioneer Astronautics, Dr. Robert Zubrin, Dean Spieth, "Mars Micro Balloon Probe".

SECONDARY EXPERIMENT:

  • Piggy back flight. This is the third of many planned EOSS flights for the "Mars Micro Balloon Probe" which will place a series of balloons in the Martian atmosphere. The objective of this flight are to test and develop inflatable gases from compounds that are normally liquids at Standard Temperature and Pressure (STP). The Mars surface pressure is simulated at 100,000 feet above sea level, thus the experiment on an EOSS balloon. This experiment will attempt to inflate balloons using various compounds. This will also permit a test of the deployment canisters required on Mars.
  • The UCCS ATV camera on the Shuttle will monitor the balloon deployment and inflation. Tune in for the excitement.

CROSS BAND REPEATER: The RMRL crossband repeater will be deployed.

APRS: The packet callsign will be: KB0VJT (Dr. Fosha)

Shuttle Generated Automatic Position Reporting System (APRS):

In order to minimize possible interference with hams in your area, we request you turn off the position beacons at your APRS station. Thanks!

Associated Emails for this Scrub.

First a message about preparations.

-----Original Message-----
From: Fraser, Don
Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2000 2:50 PM
To: 'mgriffin'
Subject: RE: EOSS #43 - Announcement, July 29


Marty:

I've arranged with Dr Fosha to attend the UCCS payload checkout on Thursday.


Don..

-----Original Message-----
From: eoss@eoss.org [mailto:eoss@eoss.org]
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 2:56 PM
To: eoss@eazy.net
Cc: Larry Benko; EOSS - George Reidmuller
Subject: [EOSS LISTSERV] EOSS #43 - Announcement, July 29

Flight Announcement for EOSS #43

EOSS #43 is on schedule and will launch at 9:00 am MDT, July 29, 2000 (rain
date July 30). The launch site is Pikes Peak Community College off the
Interquest exit just south of the North exit to the AF Academy. Listen for
the beacon on 147.555 and look for ATV on 426.25. The flight should reach
100,000 ft. and the beacons should be heard in a 400 mile radius.

This flight is on behalf of the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs
and we welcome Dr. Chuck Fosha and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium. The
High Altitude Research Project (HARP) student team members for UCCS are:

Brett Allard - Project Supervisor
James Adam - Project Supervisor, Programming
Jake Albertson - Camera Filter System and Housing, Physical
Structure
Carrie Bell - Ground Station, Lab View Software, Attitude
Determination
Brandon Pelcher - Data Analysis
Zack Stiles - Sun Sensors
Michelle Toney - Camera Filter System, Data Analysis The magnificent
UCCS Shuttle and ATV will be used to monitor the secondary experiment.

We also welcome Gary Snyder and Dean Spieth from Pioneer Astronautics. They
are continuing a series of experiments and flights to test inflation
techniques using various liquid/gas compounds and balloon deployment
canisters for future Mars balloon missions.

Friday night, July 29, Marty, WA0GEH will conduct the tracking and recovery
net on 147.225, 8:00 MDT. Logistics for the tracking and recovery
operation will be discussed. Please plan to listen in or, if you are
interested, joining the effort.

Tracking and Recovery People: Please advise if you can support this flight
to Marty Griffin, wa0geh@arrl.net or 303-470-5471. This will save a phone
call, thanks.

The Tracking and Recovery net will be on 448.450 MHz Saturday, July 29.
Starting about 7:00 am logistic traffic will start to flow. This will be
become a DIRECTED net, all traffic for the recovery effort will be directed
through Marty, WA0GEH.

 Next a sequence of messages about the scrub

-----Original Message-----
From: Marty Griffin
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2000 9:59 PM
To: EOSS - Merle McCaslin
Subject: FW: [EOSS LISTSERV] EOSS #43 Scrubbed

Hi Merle,

This is the scoop I got from Don and sent to your bummer address.

- Marty


-----Original Message-----
From: Marty Griffin
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 12:23 PM
To: Fraser, Don
Cc: EOSS - Chip Bisbee; EOSS - George Reidmuller; EOSS - Rick VonGlahn Jr.; EOSS - Merle McCaslin; EOSS - Mike Manes - Home; EOSS - Larry Cerney
Subject: RE: [EOSS LISTSERV] EOSS #43 Scrubbed


Thanks Don,

Merle and Mike were wondering about this. I feel better about the scrub.
Seems we did the right thing. Appreciate the real story.

- Marty


-----Original Message-----
From: Fraser, Don
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 12:19 PM
To: 'mgriffin'
Subject: RE: [EOSS LISTSERV] EOSS #43 Scrubbed


This is good info as the payload was in need of major rework yesterday. As of late last night they had the mirror and the sun sensor working. But they were still blowing fuses on other parts of the package. Had to scrape off a good 1/4" of foam to get the mirror to not stick.

With the delay they can get the data stream to also work right. The one sensor which was thought to use the last four data sets of one stream, was in fact using the first three and that last of a different stream. They also fixed a number of data in-stability's like floating grounds, data inputs...

Don..

-----Original Message-----
From: eoss@eoss.org
Sent: Friday, July 28, 2000 11:44 AM
To: eoss@eazy.net
Cc: EOSS - George Reidmuller
Subject: [EOSS LISTSERV] EOSS #43 Scrubbed


Hello Everyone

EOSS #43 scheduled for July 29, 2000 from Elizabeth, Colorado has been scrubbed. The flight will be rescheduled for mid-September. We look forward to another launch with UCCS, Dr. Chuck Fosha and the HARP team.

The reason for the scrub was that the landing predictions calculated for multiple launch sites continue to be in populated areas. As a policy, Edge of Space Sciences does not intentionally land in populated areas. This condition is due to the summer "turn around winds" at high altitudes (above 60,000 ft.) which cause the payload to move west. These winds turn back around in late fall and resume a eastward direction. See the EOSS web
page for further analysis by Rick, N0KKZ.

www.eoss.org

There will be a short net tonight on 147.225 at 8:00 to repeat this scrub notification for those who may have missed this message.

I will attempt to call many of the tracking and recovery team members to give them notice. Tracking members, if you can respond to this message, I will not call you.

73's,

Marty Griffin, WA0GEH

"Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor."
- Wernher von Braun