More flights scheduled for tomorrow

I’ve found a nice place for flying the cessna. Héctor and I are going to train our fingers a bit more and get them used to the cessna tomorrow. Flying RC models helps you finding future problems and singularities you’ll face while building and designing the control for an aeroplane.

We have some code that uses a Wiimote as a naïve IMU. If we can get the Wiimote up in the air, it will also be the first test for the Ground Station! Here is a small video showing a simple Attitude Estimator using the accelerometers from the Wiimote:

We’ll keep you posted with the results of the flights tomorrow. Pictures and videos will surely follow.

— fpereda

We are flying!

We just started to fly the last weekend getting a very interesting experience. Spending a lot of time looking for a runaway and yes! we found it! and most important, we had an excellent weather for flying. After a while we got our fingers used to the cessna and now flights are much smoother and nicer. We had to introduce some modifications in the gear providing us an excellent smooth taking off.

We also had some epic fails landings, but no ducky pilot was hurted as the following picture shows:

Click for a larger version of the picture

And another good new, a mold for building Smartfish is coming to Madrid!, we expect to have planes during the next month.

First preliminary experiments ready

The first preliminary experiments are ready. We just received some cessna RC replicas to do some first flights and start seeing how much weight they can handle. These planes are going to be our first steps into the RC world. Soon we are going to use them to carry our hardware. This will also serve as a very nice first test for the ground station and other components of the final experiment.

Formally, the first test is scheduled for Saturday morning. This is a very easy and concise experiment. This is what we expect:

• Get used to the planes and RC in general
• Measure how much weight our RC cessna can handle on flight and take-off
• See how it is to fly our RC cessna with extra weight

The last goal will be accomplished by putting different cubes of known weight in the planes. Also simulating the emplacement of the electronics. Héctor has already prepared the cubes.

And last, but not least, we want to publicly present the scientist that will carry every flight experiment. Here you can se him with one of the cessna.

Click on the picture for a larger version

His name is “Pato” (“Duck” in spanish).

— fpereda

Selection results published

ESA just published the results of the selection workshop: Experts select future REXUS/BEXUS experiments

Congratulations to all of you, we are really looking forward to seeing you and how your experiments are going.

— fpereda

Passed the Selection Workshop

Good morning all!

Today we got one of the best e-mails we’ve ever received. It was titled:

Results of BEXUS selection – Spacefish

It was Helen herself. The email starts with the following:

Dear Spacefish team,

I am delighted to inform you that your experiment has been selected for the BEXUS campaign in October 2009! 

So that’s right, we have been selected. We have been expecting this since the minute after finishing our presentation.

We don’t know who else has been selected yet, but we want to congratulate them all. To those that didn’t pass, we are very sorry, all of the projects were really interesting and well prepared, but such is life.

There’s tons of work ahead. Our first task was preparing a big, detailed, realistic work schedule. Now, we just have to follow it

Cheers, and see you all soon.

 — fpereda