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We needed something running to read data from the APRS tracker.. so I got a machine setup with xastir and a TNC… it amazes me how dysfunctional and old all of this ham software is. After much clicking around obtuse dialog boxes and hand editing undocumented config files, we can now read packets. Our in-flight entertainment includes:

- 900mhz 115k radio for telemetry

- backup standalone microtrak, 144.39mhz APRS

- failsafe 70cm beacon for DXing, should things go really, really wrong.

We had a lot going on at the lab yesterday. In the early afternoon, Brian and Sirus continued hacking on the ground software, while 3ric, Leigh and I got the thermal chamber going again. We tested the BeeLine failsafe beacon, and it performed marvelously, showing only a very slight frequency drift (5kHz or so) down at -60C.

With a successful round of thermal testing under our belts, 3ric and Leigh then worked on getting our ground-station Internet gateways configured and running, and I worked on getting our new glider assembled.

Phil assembled a rig for thermal testing our glider flight controller and it’s data acquisition, which involved some fairly intricate soldering:

As I was getting ready to pack it in for the night, there was continued thermal testing. Phil’s thermal tests of the flight controller and data acquisition were quite successful, while Dan took a much more hands-on approach to thermal testing the science payload controllers:

All in all, a good day at the lab. It’s good to see things coming together, and have everyone working so hard on getting things built and working together.

�����minicom: ../iconv/loop.c:425: internal_utf8_loop_single: Assertion `inptr – bytebuf > (state->__count & 7)’ failed.
Aborted (core dumped)