| Removing the Star Camera (yes, again) ... nothing like last minute hardware fixes... |
| Looking down the Star Camera Pressure Vessel at the Star Camera itself. |
| Testing the Star Camera. Just to the right of the monitor is the star camera and lens. Through the window you can see the red filter. Peeking out from behind the frontplate with the window, you can make out one of the belt drives which adjust to focus and aperture of the lens. Next, behind the mounting plate is the white, rectangular camera. To the right of the lens and camera on the table is the star camera computer, attached to the backplate of the pressure vessel. |
| A view of the star camera and lens. The lens is a 200 f/2. You can see both belt drives and the stepper motors that run them. |
| The star camera computer. On the top of the stack at left is the laptop harddrive. Underneath the mounting plate for the harddrive is the processor board. At the top of the picture you can see the vido converter. |
| Gaelen tests the trunk ejection lever in his car. |
| Putting the star camera back together for the last time (hopefully). |
| Pickup, again. |
| The Jesus Candles burning. |
| The Jesus Candles burning. |
| Matt (and others) remove the mirror shield. |
| Thomas's artwork sadly got a little runny after the incident with the fog... |
| Leaving the highbay. This is old hat. |
| Ed takes a nap at a convenient time. |
| BLAST in position... the waiting game begins. |
| Almost dawn... |
| A view of all the antennas hanging down below BLAST. |
| BLAST on the MLV. |
| Getting the spool truck and helium tankers into position. |
| BLAST on the MLV. |
| The helium tankers heading towards the fill site. |
| MLV driving around. |
| Redeploying on a different line. |
| MLV driving around. |
| Frank measures out the new line. |
| MLV parked in the new location. |
| MLV parked in the new location. |
| Ditto. The sun has risen and is peeking out from behind the clouds. |
| Ditto. On the right you can see the bucket truck which is about to wreck the photo opertunity. |
| BLAST hanging from the MLV. |
| Looking towards the spool truck. |
| Hanging on the MLV. |
| Hanging on the MLV. |
| MLV with bucket truck in full photo-op denial mode. |
| Unrolling the tarps. |
| Unrolling the tarps. |
| Gaelen takes a picture of BLAST in front of the sun, despite the bucket truck. |
| Artist's rendition of Galen's picture. |
| Unrolling the parachute. |
| Unrolling the parachute movie clip. |
| Unrolling the parachute. |
| Unrolling the parachute. |
| Somethin' a-brewin' down by the the ol' spool truck. By gar, it's been a while. |
| The box on the trailer covered with a red tarp is the balloon box. |
| Laying out the fill lines. |
| Laying out the fill lines. |
| Laying out the fill lines. |
| They've moved the balloon out of the way for the moment... uh-oh. |
| Waiting to unroll. |
| Waiting to unroll. |
| Waiting to unroll. |
| The two helium tankers in position. |
| Helium truck with BLAST in the background. |
| Moving the balloon box back into position. |
| The balloon crate back in position... woo! |
| The same thing from the other side. |
| Mark tries to remove the plastic cover from the primary. |
| Mark tries to remove the plastic cover from the primary. |
| It's gotten stuck on somethning. Gaelen documents. |
| Matt gives it a try while Mark and Rob go up on the forklift to see if they can see where it is stuck. |
| Mark prepares to go up in the bucket truck to do another thing that needs to be done: remove the pump line from the cryostat. |
| Inspecting the situation. |
| Mark sticks his arm in there. |
| Still at it. |
| Looking towards the spool truck. |
| Unrolling! (They're realling making this launch attempt look authentic.) |
| Attaching the balloon to the parachute. |
| A pieball (the little black balloon) is launched to check the low level winds. |
| BLAST continues to wait. |
| Preparing the balloon. |
| Starting the fill. |
| Filling continues. Although the balloon looks pretty big already, it's only the very top of the balloon that is actualy filled with helium. The rest of the balloon will expand as the balloon ascends and the atmospheric pressure drops. |
| One of the fill tubes. |
| Another shot of the balloon. |
| Tanker, balloon, MLV, BLAST. |
| Still filling. |
| Still filling. Shortly after taking this picture, one of the NSBF Riggers came and told me that I was standing in the Instant-Death-Zone of the balloon fill area. If the rigger holding the fill tube loses his hold on it, the tube would flail around (like a fire hose would) and I might be hit, rather hardly, with the big tube of metal at the end of the line... oops. Needless to say, I moved on. |
| Filling. |
| BLAST on the MLV during the fill. Notice the tension on the flightline. |
| Another shot of the balloon. |
| BLAST again. |
| A panorama of the flightline. |
| Looking down the flightline. Someone appears to be inspecting the parachute. |
| Another view of the launch site. |
| Ditto. |
| Gaelen takes a really cool picture of the prelaunch deployment. |
| BLAST with the balloon behind it. |
| Looking down the line. |
| Looking down the line. |
| Looking down the line. |
| BLAST's more photogenic side... maybe. |
| The Launch video. |