by joe.latrell | Jun 11, 2020 | News, Spaceflight
Recently we started building out our solar panels for the Serenity CubeSat, a project we have been working on with Teachers in Space. The process we used to build them is featured the two videos below. There were problems but we have figured them out and are moving...
by joe.latrell | Jan 26, 2020 | News
Today, I found out that Bob Cringely has been working on a space startup that will launch CubeSats to orbit using a rapid turnaround method. The details (as such) can be found at his web site, cringely.com. If you need to get a 12 pound CubeSat to space and do it...
by joe.latrell | Jan 24, 2020 | News
In November 2019 we successfully launched the data package that was destined for the Discovery satellite. Alba Orbital was kind enough to carry the chip in their hardware for Mini-Cubes. The neat thing is that you can track the flight of the photos, images, drawings,...
by joe.latrell | Dec 1, 2019 | Discovery, News
Time for one of those good news/bad news posts. The bad news is that Discovery PocketQube is not going on the RocketLab flight as planned. The good news is that all of the images, books, videos, etc are still flying. So what happened? In a nutshell, the paperwork...
by joe.latrell | Sep 30, 2019 | Discovery, News
We have finally installed a vacuum chamber that can drop the pressure to 2,500 mTorr (we can go to 500 mTorr) if we need it. That pressure is pretty close to what Discovery will experience in space. I ran the first test with the Engineering model for over six hours....
by joe.latrell | Sep 3, 2019 | News
Today, I will be going wheels up bound for Glosgow, Scotland. The 3rd PocketQube workshop is starting on Thursday and I am planning to give a talk on the progress we have had here. A few more milestones, some testing and then we integrate into the AlbaPod bound for...
by joe.latrell | Aug 6, 2019 | News
It took a couple of modifications but the cleanroom has achieved operational status. In order to qualify, we need to have less than 352,000 particles larger than 0.5 microns. We also must have less than 2,930 particles larger than 5 microns. Those numbers are per...
by joe.latrell | Jul 31, 2019 | News
It has taken a bit longer than planned but we now have a class 10,000 cleanroom for assembling our PocketQube satellites. The basis of the room is a four foot by four foot hydroponic growing container. It is made out of very thick mylar walls. We added a DIY air...
by joe.latrell | Jul 21, 2019 | News, Spaceflight
Fifty years ago, I was recovering from staying up late to watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin perform their EVA on the Moon. It was amazing to watch on our new 25 inch color television, even if the images coming from the Moon were in black and white. The world...
by joe.latrell | May 19, 2019 | Discovery, Mars, News
My friend Joel Jackel came down from new York with his Mark Watney costume. It took him a year to make it. We found a good location to take some shots and then with a little bit of editing, made it look like Mars. It was a fun photo shoot. Going to send this image on...
