We went out to FAR Friday afternoon and setup to test. On Saturday FAR was a busy place, monprops, biprops, hybrids, solids, static tests, flights, with a lot of people. The whole Masten crew came out to watch us fly the blue ball. We brought food, fired up the grill and tried to make sure [...]...

Paul Breed posts: Today we tested a new catalyst pack for the blue ball. This is not the motor that we have been machining recently, its a new solid catalyst for the older stainless motor we flew last year. The test was almost perfect. We had no setup issues and everything just worked. The catalyst ...

Paul Breed posts: The Cat screens and Cat assembly is complete. The modified Motor for the Blue ball is 100% ready to test. We hope to test next weekend. Depending on how the 2009 LLC rules turn out we could be doing flight test in as little as two or as many as 10 weeks. If [...]...

Paul Breed posts: I’m building a screen based catalyst for the blue ball. Unfortunately I can’t talk much about the catalyst construction, I have a NDA with a third party that covers parts of the design I have parts that are from public sources and parts are my own creation alas its hard to tell...

We were going to go out to the test site and static test the blue ball with a “solid� catalyst. (The FAR event was canceled due to 75mph winds forecast on Saturday as I was typing this.) John Carmack sent me several catalyst styles, one kind was a pourable ring catalyst from cpilink.com It looks...

Here are a couple status updates that were posted this month: SC by Kristian von Bengtson, 2008-12-04 We are working hard on the development of the space craft. The main shell has now been frozen for boiler plate production, and laser cutting files has been created for the top and buttom cone parts....

MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER HIRISE IMAGES July 16, 2008 o Mystery Mounds http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_008778_1685 o Layering and Inverted Streams http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_008774_1755 o Cratered Cones in Utopia Planitia u http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/PSP_008767_2055 o Layered Rocks in ...

Team Astrobotic appreciates Intersil’s ( http://www.intersil.com/military/ ) rad-hard, space-rated discrete components for regulating our power and firing discrete events. Many electronic devices and useful schematics appear on the Intersil site. Large Image Here Please feel free to discuss th...

It has been noted by battery experts that Lithium batteries can be frozen hard, at low temperatures, and recover their usefulness when thawed. This might be useful for GLXP systems planned to stay on the Moon “Overnight�. The temperature on the Moon falls quickly at sundown to about -173C = 100K...

Unreasonable Rockets have posted a short update, Paul Breed tells us: My FAA application has been declared Complete Enough. You may read it here:http://www.rasdoc.com/FAApermit/Public_Permit90_2008.pdf The really hard core can compare and contrast with last years here: http://www.rasdoc.com/FAApermi...