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Showing posts with label space program. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space program. Show all posts

Thursday, December 21, 2023

Sci-Fi Series with an Apollo-era Vibe

Kind of fun.  The Apollo-era and Saturn V stuff bring back memories of 1969 and all that. It is a series that you can watch on Apple TV. 

Here is a review: 

https://www.wired.com/2023/12/geeks-guide-for-all-mankind/

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Other Workshops: Mission to Jupiter's Icy Moons: The Making of JUICE: The Full Movie


I really like this film.  The enthusiasm of the people involved comes through very clearly.  They love this project.  At the end, you can see a person from the ESA team crying with emotion when they received word that telemetry had been picked up from JUICE -- it had survived the launch. 

Imagine the difficulties involved in doing this across many countries and many languages, in the midst of the COVID pandemic.   Three cheers for all those who made this happen. 

I put this in the "Other Workshops" category.  At some points the workshop seems to be all of Europe.  At other times (like when they move JUICE to the test facility) it seems like one specific place. 

I wonder how the procedures we see in this film compare to the famed spacecraft-building procedures of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.  But just remember:  When it came time to launch the Webb Space Telescope, NASA opted to launch from the ESA facility in French Guiana.  Their Ariane rocket apparently had a better success rate than ours.  But it did seem to me that they did discover problems with some of the instruments in the thermal phase of the "shake and bake" but then corrected them without re-running the thermal tests.  Was that a violation of test principles? 

Watching this movie makes me really want to take out my small telescope and aim it at Jupiter (which is now high in our evening sky). 

We see a lot of "soul" built into this new machine:  the inclusion in the spacecraft of a copy of pages from Galileo's Starry Messenger and the names of those involved in the project, and the selection of the faring logo from a children's contest,  for example.  Yaryna, the young Ukrainian artist who drew the logo at age 8, even mentions "soul" in her remarks.  

Godspeed, JUICE! 


Monday, November 27, 2023

Video on Discovery and Restoration of the Apollo Guidance Computer


I've probably posted before about CuriousMarc's efforts to restore the DSKY Apollo Guidance Computer.  But this Wall Street Journal video sums it up and adds detail about where the computer they worked on came from:  the guy in the video found it discarded in a junk warehouse that he bought in the 1970s!  Those of us who scour those under-the-table parts boxes at hamfests will appreciate this find, and the ensuing restoration. 

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Apollo Core Rope Memory -- CuriousMarc Takes it on (video)


Here is another amazing Apollo video from CuriousMarc (AJ6JV).  Thanks to Bob KD4EBM for alerting me to this. We have recently been discussing the "Apollo rope memory" as I read Sunburst and Luminary by Don Eyles (ex K4ZHF). In this video Marc and his colleague Mike get ahold of some actual Apollo memory modules, develop a device that allows them to read it,  and they discover a design error.  Wow.  

My analog HDR head hurts after watching this.  Even Marc says he was approaching his limits in explaining all this.  

I had not heard of the bug they discovered in the Apollo 11 software just a month before launch, and how they had to climb into the Saturn V to fix it.  Amazing.  

Thanks Marc, thanks Mike and thanks Bob. 

Wednesday, October 11, 2023

Sunburst and Luminary: Apollo "Rope" Memory, and other items of interest

 

Wow.  That is the method that they stored computer memory for the moon missions.  When they were satisfied with a program they would say it was time to "put it on the rope."  

Here's an article on the women who built the rope memory (and the integrated circuits used in Apollo). This reminded me of the women's collective in Hyderabad that "wove" the ferrite core transformers for Farhan's BITX rigs: 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/core-memory-weavers-navajo-apollo-raytheon-computer-nasa#:~:text=Core%20memory%20used%20metal%20wires,to%20create%20a%20particular%20pattern.

Here is a Wikipedia article on core rope ROM memory with some great illustrations: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_rope_memory

The Rope

Other stuff of interest that I have spotted so far in the book Sunburst and Luminary -- An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles:  

-- Not long before the fatal Apollo 1 fire, an MIT colleague of Don Eyles had a drink with Astronaut Gus Grissom.  Grissom unloaded about the poor state of the spacecraft, saying that, "What we have here is a Heathkit."  Grissom died in the fire. 

-- Eyles mentions the use of 6L6 tubes in analog audio amplifiers. 

-- MIT's Doc Draper used a Minox camera.  

-- When the Apollo 11 astronauts came back and were living for two weeks in an isolation chamber, NASA had bulldozers on standby to bury the whole thing ("astronauts, staff and all") in case some dangerous moon bug was detected.  (Is that true?) 

-- At one point soon before an important missile test, engineers realized that they needed an isolation transformer.  They did not have enough time to order one.  So they took an isolation transformer out of one of their soldering stations and used it in the missile.  It worked. Sometimes you just use what you have on hand. 

Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Sunburst and Luminary -- A Poem about Transistors and ICs

 
Sunburst and Luminary by Don Eyles has a lot of the kind of color that helps the reader understand what was going on technologically during the 1960s.  For example, there is this poem about integrated circuits (you don't get to use "poem" and "integrated circuits" in the same sentence very often): 

The transistor's a marvelous invention
Replaced the tube convention
        Found its niche
        To amplify or switch
Whatever the designer's intention. 

But the breakthrough was the IC
Integrated monolithically
        It became pivotal
        As computers went digital 
With increasing complexity. 

Eyles tells us that this poem was written by hardware designer Jayne Partridge, and appears in Eldon Hall's write-up of the Apollo Guidance Computer and the decision to use ICs in it: 

Monday, October 2, 2023

"Sunburst and Luminary" author Don Eyles was a Ham, a Hacker, and a user of Plywood who Understood Juju

-- As a kid, Eyles took a summertime shop class with W4LRO.  Eyles himself went on to get his ham license -- he was K4ZHF and was active for a while on the 40 meter and 6 meter bands. 

-- He writes of how the Apollo software acquired more "juju as labor and logic were poured into them." Juju. 

-- He describes the electronics lab in the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory: "If you had a private project you could sometimes get some simple milling done for a smile, and you could scrounge the odd resistor or capacitor... On the second floor there was a small "hackers shop" with a drill press, metal shear, a bending brake, and a few hand tools which was open to anyone, including software engineers. That was the first use of the term "hack" in a technical context, that I can recall hearing. I took the term as referring to the sometimes messy process by which perforations of suitable sizes were made in the aluminum boxes, or chassis, that were used for constructing electronic devices."  Indeed.  We hack.   

-- After describing the first integrated circuits, Eyles looks back at high school and notes that he and a friend, "after learning about truth tables, James Chambers and I had experimented with similar devices composed of relays mounted on a piece of plywood."  Plywood.  

  

More to follow on this book. 

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Sunburst and Luminary -- An Apollo Memoir by Don Eyles (video)


Buy the book from the Amazon link on the right side of the page >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

There is so much great stuff in this 2018 video.  I am definitely going to buy the book.  This is another of those things that reminds me (a hardware guy) of the importance of software (Sunburst and Luimary were the names of two programs that Eyles wrote to enable the LEM to land on the moon).  

-- Asked about one of the biggest ancillary contributions of the Apollo program,  Eyles immediately says, "integrated circuits."   They used three terminal NOR gates.  Lots of them. 

-- They never had a hardware failure in the Apollo computers.  Demonstrating a classic troubleshooting technique, when they discovered what they thought was a hardware failure, they ran the program on another computer.  The problem was also there, so they knew there had been no failure on the first machine. 

-- The LEM simulator was very cool. 

-- Eyles' ability -- in two hours -- to write the code for the automatic landing program that Astronaut John Young was asking for, then have it flown on an Apollo mission to the moon was very impressive. 

Thanks to the MIT Museum for posting Don's talk.  And thanks to HackADay for alerting us to it.

Also, take a look at this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi4h04ZgQsQ

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Voyager, Canopus, JPL, and 74xx Logic Chips from the early 1970s


"So somewhere out there in interstellar space beyond the boundary of the Solar System is a card frame full of 74 logic that’s been quietly keeping an eye on a star since the early 1970s, and the engineers from those far-off days at JPL are about to save the bacon of the current generation at NASA with their work. We hope that there are some old guys in Pasadena right now with a spring in their step."

https://hackaday.com/2023/07/31/just-how-is-voyager-2-going-to-sort-out-its-dish-then/


Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Australia and Apollo 11 -- Honeysuckle Creek


Trevor reminded me that Parkes ("The Dish") was not the only Australian antenna at work during Apollo 11.  This very nice video gives a more complete description of what happened.  

I saw one piece of Collins gear.  And some of Curious Marc's HP frequency counters.  

More on the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station here: https://honeysucklecreek.net/

Saturday, May 13, 2023

Jam on Radar Antenna of Jupiter-bound Spacecraft FIXED! Antenna deployed!

Great news. This stuck antenna was getting me down.  Three cheers for the ESA folks who fixed it from afar.  

https://phys.org/news/2023-05-stuck-antenna-freed-jupiter-bound-spacecraft.html

Here is how they did it: 

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Juice/Juice_s_RIME_antenna_breaks_free


The RIME antenna looks a bit like one of my dipoles! But it can look 9 km into the ice. 

And what a great name:  Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer.  Juice. 

Godspeed JUICE!  

Saturday, April 8, 2023

Europa -- "Attempt No Landing There."


As we get ready to send two probes to the Galilean moons of Jupiter, this sci fi movie made its way into my feed.   It is pretty good, and the ending will appeal to all true radio amateurs. 


Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Curious Marc's Lab and Workshop


This is the guy who has done all the amazing videos on the Apollo communications systems.  And a lot more. This look at his lab is inspirational.  

There is so much to see here.  But a couple of things really caught my attention: 

All of the RF electronics in the Apollo spacecraft was made with discrete components -- the only chips in the spacecraft were in the computer.  And in the Apollo systems, they welded the discrete components in.  No soldering.  Welding.  That's hardcore.  That is how they got to the Moon.  

Curious Marc's YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@CuriousMarc

Wednesday, September 14, 2022

SolderSmoke Podcast #85 With Mike Herr WA6ARA June 8, 2008 WIZARD ISLAND!

When I was putting this podcast up on YouTube, I needed a picture of Mike Herr WA6ARA who was my guest on this episode.  I found a picture of Mike activating a summit... THE SUMMIT OF WIZARD ISLAND!   That is Wizard Island (above).  Mike and his wife are shown at the summit (below). 


I really liked talking to Mike, and to listening again to our conversation.  But I realize now I should have asked him about parachutes!  I'd been talking about the great picture of the Phoenix lander under canopy as it descended to Mars.  Mike made and tested parachutes for NASA!  


You can fire up a YouTube playlist that will bring you a steady stream of SolderSmoke podcasts here: 

Here is a report from Mike on the Wizard Island activation: 

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

IGY! Science and the Vanguard Satellite in 1959 (video)


The International Geophysical Year (1958-1959) was a very scientifically productive period.  It is really amazing how much we learned from tiny satellites like Vanguard.  Like the shape of the Earth!  Great stuff in this video.  

Very cool telescopes and cameras set up around the world to monitor the early satellites.  And there is a quick mention of ham radio efforts to monitor the new spacecraft. 

Thanks to Josh G3MOT for sending this to us. 

Go IGY! 

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Apollo 11 in Real Time



This web site presents all the data received from Apollo 11.   They are presenting it in the sequence it happened, exactly as it was 53 years ago today.  Today's clock is synched with clock from 53 years ago. I just tuned in today -- they are at the 6 day point in the mission.  Armstrong and Aldrin are on the Lunar surface, resting.  Collins is in orbit, sleeping.   

This is exactly the kind of thing we need to have playing in the background as we build things in our shacks.  Thanks to Peter O'Connell VK2EMU for sending us this wonderful link.   https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/  

 

Friday, December 31, 2021

Troubleshooting Apollo: 23 MHz Crystals in a NASA Ground Receiver


More amazing Apollo stuff from CuriousMarc. 

Here we see them struggling to find the proper frequency for one of the oscillators in a dual conversion UHF receiver from the Apollo program.  For the VCO, they needed a crystal in the 23 MHz range. They faced the same questions we face:   Series or parallel?  Load capacitance?  Fundamental or overtone? 

It just so happens that at this moment I have on my bench the 17 meter SSB transmitter that I built some 20 years ago.  And the VXO in it uses crystals in the 23 MHz range.  TRGHS. (More on the spur problem with this rig soon.  The solution does involve the 23 MHz VXO.) 

Very cool that CuriousMarc found a manufacturer still willing to produce custom-made crystals. JAN flashbacks!  LapTech Precision in Canada: https://www.laptech.com/index.php

The video above is Episode 8 in the Apollo Comms series.  If you go back one episode, you can watch Marc and his assistant troubleshoot the NASA Apollo UHF receiver.   They use very familiar troubleshooting techniques.  This reminded me a lot of what we do with older, potentially modified gear.  They were able to figure out what was wrong and  how a mod had changed things.  This set the stage for the crystal replacement selection we see in Episode 8.   Here is Episode 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87qA41A_Ies

Note:  The frequencies in this Apollo receiver were listed in Megacycles, not Mega Hertz. 

Thanks to Bob Scott KD4EBM for alerting us to this. 

Saturday, December 25, 2021

A Nice Christmas Gift Out of French Guiana -- The Launch of the James Webb Space Telescope

 
A nice Christmas present from NASA and ESA on the screen early on Christmas morning.  

Track Webb Telescope's progress here: 
Designer: Douglas Bowman | Dimodifikasi oleh Abdul Munir Original Posting Rounders 3 Column