Hi all!
I'm starting to locate components for a possible rocket balloon space shot
in the next 5 years or so. I had a few questions.
Does the telemetrum suffer from any GPS lockouts that would make it fail to
record my maximum height? Generally ITAR locks you out with a max velocity
or max altitude, obviously rockets would prevent this. All I really want is
altitude.
Is it possible to get additional uplink commands or pyro channels. I really
need to air start this guy off the balloon as well as provide a nichrome
wire cut down. I would also like to power up a redundant altimeter or
timer. I'm willing to put this on a separate board but having to route yet
another wireless tranciever would really stink.
A little about me (in case you are wondering).
I'm currently a software engineer at an aerospace company. I have
participated in a student sounding rocket payload program. I L1 certified
when I was 15 (under my dad) (that was my last flight). I have a BS in
computer engineering and an MS in electrical engineering. I am a US
citizen. I'm planning to start down a long journey of several test flights
(L1, L2 etc) and balloon launches before I try for the ultimate space shot.
My goal is to fly a small (small as possible) and low powered rocket right
up to the space cut off (50-60 miles).
The telemetrum has a lot of great features that will severely lighten my
avionics package.
Michael Stephens
engrstephens(a)gmail.com
Altus Metrum releases AltOS 1.1
BLACK FOREST, Colorado USA
Altus Metrum is pleased to announce the immediate availability of
version 1.1 of our AltOS software. AltOS includes the firmware for
TeleMetrum, TeleMini, and TeleDongle products, and the AltosUI ground
station program.
Version 1.1 is a minor release, that provides a few new features and
fixes bugs. Many subtle changes make the ground station software easier
to use. The most visible new features and fixes are:
Imperial units option. When enabled, this uses imperial units (feet
and miles) for all values on the screen and in the voice announcements.
A new ‘Age’ element in the Monitor Flight display. This shows how long
since the last valid telemetry packet was received, making it easier
to tell when communications are lost.
Apogee-lockout timer. At customer request, for situations where the
normal apogee determination algorithm could be fooled, we’ve added an
optional timeout value to prevent premature firing of the apogee charge.
Flight data export to Google Earth fixed to work with recent versions.
Mac OS Lion and more variants of Windows 7 systems now supported.
There are bug fixes in the firmware for all hardware products, so customers
should plan on re-flashing all hardware units at some point. However, there
are no incompatible changes, so this does not have to be done all at once.
All Altus Metrum products including TeleMetrum, TeleMini, and AltOS are
completely open hardware and open source. AltOS works on Linux, Windows,
and Mac OS systems. The hardware design details and all source code are
openly available for download from altusmetrum.org, and advanced users are
invited to join our developer community and help to enhance and extend the
system.
