Sunday, May 3, 2009

Day 39, 5/3/09 -- "Layers of deception"

Thus spake Dan, whilst describing the data pouring in on our computer screens. Dan and Hannes have been working all day on doing artificial planet scans but were stymied by drifting pointing sensors making them think they were pointed at the source but when in reality they weren't. Such is life when you're indoors with no reliable absolute pointing sensors. Will showed some plots of maps made from the previous day's scans and they looked terrible -- but that's probably at least partially due to the aforementioned pointing drift issue, which smears the maps out.

Jeff and I finished up most of the foam for the baffles today. I also made some snazzy sheet metal baffle supports, and I have to say, working with sheet metal is great for instant gratification. Unlike machining, which takes a lot of time as you remove metal and the piece slowly comes to shape, with sheet metal things move much more quickly: One step on the shear -- KACHUNK -- and you've cut a piece off. 10 seconds in the brake and you've bent a 90-degree angle. It's a lot of fun.

Michele took a much needed day off in Albuquerque starting yesterday afternoon, and came back in the late afternoon today. Also, CREST is planning launch attempts tomorrow morning and Tuesday morning if tomorrow doesn't work out. I probably won't bother to get up, though, because at this point sleep is more important than watching a launch at 7AM.

No pictures today. Everything looks pretty much the same as it did yesterday.

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