Poor Mans Metrology

Many months ago we hydro tested our Sphere (370lbs) , Yesterday we tested our Backup vehicle sphere (385lbs) ,today I tested our new catalyst tank (475lbs) . These pressure tests set the upper limit (with some safety factor ) of what pressure we can operate the tanks at. In a traditional aerospace company everything involved would be “calibrated” and traceable to NIST. We can’t afford that so we do the next best thing we calibrate the pressure transducers used on the vehicle against the beat up old pressure gage on our hydro tester.

So I pumped up the transducers while hooked up to the vehicle electronics and compared what the telemetry said against what the gage said. I’m happy to report that they match exactly.  

The new Cat tank is installed, the repositioned catalyst injectors on the motor are done and the valves and vehicle all check out. My son is on the way back with a Swageloc fitting we needed to hook up the last new line to the new cat tank.  We are still on track to leave tonight and we will try a short translational flight under tether and then a long 90 second hover under tether at daybreak Wednesday morning.