Weekend Assortment #4: Desert Skies

This week’s rains have produced some remarkable skies.

Here’s hoping for clear weather again soon!

Weekend Assortment #3

A tough old bird.

This truck will lay out the tarp which protects the balloon and parachute from the ground.

Sunset over the MacDonnell Range.

Weekend Assortment #2

At the Alice Springs Desert Park.

A small (!) goanna waiting outside the hangar.

From ANZAC Hill.

Outback sunset.

Weekend Assortment #1

Last campaign I had a habit of posting interesting pictures that didn’t make a post in a weekend assortment.  Here’s the first installment from Alice Springs.

An outback rest area.

Post boxes in Burra.

Now *that's* a chocolate bar!

The flies can be quite unpleasant outside...

Checking out the launch crane.

Weekend Assortment V–ABQ

Last weekend I was able to see some things around Albuquerque when my girlfriend flew in to visit!

I was incredibly excited to have some fancy salad.

There were lots of cool motel signs along Central Avenue, Old Rte. 66.

We found a neighborhood that reminded me of San Francisco...

Petroglyphs National Monument.

Sandia Peak.

Weekend Assortment IV

Make your own pizza night at the grad student house.

Mark, managerially.

Daniel, distantly.

Alan in amusement.

Weekend Assortment III — McBride Edition

Inspecting CSBF's SIP (the command and telemetry system). They're named after Austin Powers characters.

"Repairing" the flight computer.

Weekend Assortment II

Well, we finished applying thermal gunk to the Low Voltage Power Supplies.  We’ll run them overnight and see if that helped cool them…  Tomorrow, Yvette, our technician, will begin harnessing the flight cables in the electronics bay.  Should be three days, and then we can calibrate!

Some assorted pictures from the past week…

Mark and McBride compare their planetarium software.

Up or down?

At the windmill supply store.

By the railway.

Desert sunset.

Weekend Assortment I

Hello and Happy Easter!  Not a lot to report for the moment–we spent Friday and Saturday finishing applying the channel covers and thermal gunk.  All of the card cages are now finished, though.  Tuesday the technician arrives to finalize the routing of the various cables.

In lieu of a narrative presentation, here are some random pictures which didn’t make it into previous posts…

The new CSBF hangar.

A parachute laid out in front of one of the balloon launch vehicles.

Inside the flight computer.

Daniel delivers the flight cables.

A train carrying tanks over the overpass towards town!

The graduate student house.

Our house at dusk.

Incidentally, pictures from the rest of the group will be uploaded intermittantly here.