[aprssig] Bob's Kludge

[Robert Bruninga]

PCSAT model in Air&Space Museum next to Shuttle:

It's even worse than you think.  It looked beautiful until the night
before we were to deliver the satellite for our final VIBE test with the
fully functional Spacecraft.  To our horror, the student supposed to keep
track of the mass budget appeared to not be diligent and we were 10% over.

We got the keys to the shop, took it all apart, and I sent a student down
with orders to drill holes everywhwere.  He did.  Not only that, but we
used tin-snips to cut off every extra piece of sheet metal we could
eliminate.  Look carefully at the edges of the nice elex boxes after
waffled along the edges with tin snips.  Finished by midnight and got it
all assembled perfectly on our mass budget.

Don't do this next time! See:  http://aprs.org/pcsat/FrameHoles.JPG

No way would we have gotten away with this on our other 4 missions via
shuttle and ISS with NASA looking over our shoulders...

Bob, WB4APR

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Dimse
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2012 3:30 PM
Subject: [aprssig] Bob's Kludge

Today I was walking through the National Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy
Center and something stopped me cold. In front of me was a model of a
satellite we all know and love, immediately recognizable because of its
antennas which are very different from all the other satellites on
display.

Over the years Bob has gotten plenty of heat for his kludges, including
from me, but until I have something in the Smithsonian literally basking
in the glow of a space shuttle I'm going to keep my mouth shut!

A photo is at

http://www.rangersteve.com/pcsat-uhc.jpg

That is not photoshopped, I took it with my iPhone which has very
wide-angle lens. PCsat is to the side of Discovery's starboard nose.

Steve