Ian's Blog

Stratofox recovers record-breaking CNSP-10 balloon
Stratofox teams (including me) recovered the CNSP-10 balloon payload after its flight to 136,545', breaking Cornell University's altitude record for balloon flights confirmed by Amateur Radio APRS telemetry.

Sat, 21 May 2011

Photos from STS-134 Endeavour launch
I posted my photos of the launch of STS-134, the final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour on May 16, 2011. There were two trips to see this launch because the first launch attempt on April 29 was scrubbed for technical problems.

Fri, 08 Apr 2011

Notes from Space Access '11
I'm posting notes from Space Access '11 during the conference on April 7-9.

Tue, 25 Jan 2011

Masten Space Systems rocket engine static test, Jan 25, 2011
I posted pictures from Masten Space Systems' January 25, 2011 static test of a rocket engine.

Fri, 09 Apr 2010

Notes from Space Access '10
I'm posting notes from Space Access '10 during the conference on April 8-10.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009

Masten Space Systems goes to Washington DC for NASA award in Lunar Lander Challenge, Nov 5, 2009
I posted my photos of the trip with the Masten Space Systems crew to Washington DC for the NASA and X-Prize Foundation award ceremony at the Capitol for the Lunar Lander Challenge on Nov 5, 2009. And I did some sightseeing on Nov 6-8 while I was there.

Sat, 31 Oct 2009

Masten Space Systems qualifies for Level 2 of Lunar Lander Challenge, Oct 30, 2009
I posted my photos of Masten Space Systems' rocket flights qualifying for Level 2 of the Lunar Lander Challenge in Mojave, California on Oct 30, 2009.

Thu, 08 Oct 2009

Masten Space Systems qualifies for Level 1 of Lunar Lander Challenge, Oct 7, 2009
I posted my photos of Masten Space Systems' rocket flights qualifying for Level 1 of the Lunar Lander Challenge in Mojave, California on Oct 7, 2009.

Sun, 04 Oct 2009

5 year ago: SpaceShipOne won the X-Prize
I was there among the tens of thousands of spectators on Oct 4, 2004 to see SpaceShipOne win the X-Prize in Mojave for a second manned space flight in a matter of days. See my pictures and others' at Stratofox.

Sun, 27 Sep 2009

Stratofox remote support for Mars Society TEMPO3 balloon flight, Sept 26, 2009
I was one of the Stratofox crew who provided remote assistance from California for the Mars Society's TEMPO3 balloon flight in Colorado on September 26, 2009.

Sat, 12 Sep 2009

Photos of Space Shuttle Discovery landing at Edwards
I posted my photos of the Space Shuttle Discovery landing at Edwards AFB on Friday, Sept 11, 2009.

Masten Space Systems rocket lander flight test
I posted (with permission) photos of Masten Space Systems test flight of the XA-0.1B rocket lander in preparation for the Level 1 Lunar Lander Challenge competition flights.

Tour of XCOR Aerospace in Mojave
I posted (with permission) photos of a tour XCOR Aerospace on Friday, Sept 11, 2009 including quick looks at the EZ-Rocket, X-Racer and progress on construction of the Lynx spacecraft.

Tue, 21 Jul 2009

Photos from NewSpace 2009 Conference
I posted my pictures from the Space Frontier Foundation's NewSpace 2009 Conference at NASA Ames on July 18-19, 2009. The conference continued to July 20.

Sun, 24 May 2009

Atlantis landing at Edwards on May 24, 2009
I went to Southern California to see the space shuttle landing. Here are my photos of the landing.

Wed, 20 May 2009

Recollections on the 5th anniversary of the CSXT Space Shot
Stratofox posted recollections (including mine) of the CSXT Space Shot 2004. That was the first amateur rocket launched to space. It took place at Nevada's Black Rock Desert. I led the search teams which recovered the spacecraft.

Sun, 10 May 2009

Photos of Masten Space Systems VTVL rocket flight test, May 8, 2009
I posted my photos of Masten Space Systems' first flight test of a vertical takeoff/vertical landing (VTVL) rocket at the Mojave Air & Space Port on May 8, 2009.

Sun, 03 May 2009

Stratofox presentation at EmCommWest/Pacificon 2009
The slides have been posted from my presentation about the Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team at EmCommWest/Pacificon 2009, the ARRL Pacific Division Convention, in Reno, Nevada on May 2, 2009.

Thu, 09 Apr 2009

Photos from Space Access 2009
I posted photos from Space Access 2009 in Phoenix on April 2-4, 2009 and the flight home on April 5.

Fri, 03 Apr 2009

Stratofox presentation at Space Access '09
The slides have been posted from my presentation about the Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team at the Space Access 2009 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on April 2, 2009.

Sat, 29 Nov 2008

Stratofox recovers missing Japanese CanSat research payload at Black Rock
I was a member of the Stratofox team who recovered the missing Japanese CanSat research payload from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada on November 23. The odds against finding a soda can sized object in the vast desert would have made a needle in a haystack search look good. Fortunately, as has been the story before, a little intuition about where to narrow down the search and quite a bit of luck led to success.

Fri, 28 Mar 2008

Presentation slides on rocket piloting from Space Access '08
I posted my slides from the panel discussion about "Paths to Rocket Piloting" on March 27, the first day of the Space Access '08 conference in Phoenix, Arizona. These slides weren't actually shown due to changes in format of the panel. But they were used for notes and I promised the audience I'd post them. You can download them as PDF (256K) or OpenOffice (260K).

Wed, 18 Jul 2007

Photos of Blue Origin's spaceport site
I got some pictures of Blue Origin's spaceport site north of Van Horn, Texas when I was passing through the area on July 15, 2007.

Fri, 22 Jun 2007

Photos of Atlantis landing at Edwards
I got lucky. I was visiting Mojave when the space shuttle came to land nearby at Edwards AFB. I posted my photos of the landing.

My photos in the Masten Space Systems blog
Some of my photos from 6/21 are shown in the Masten Space Systems blog. There's continuing progress toward the first tethered flight.

Wed, 20 Jun 2007

Photos of Atlantis and ISS visible pass, June 19, 2007
I got pictures of the visible pass of the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the International Space Station over the Bay Area on June 19, 2007. This was a few hours after Atlantis undocked so they passed as two separate dots in the sky, or separate streaks in my long-exposure photos.

Tue, 24 Apr 2007

Stratofox presentation at Carter Observatory, Wellington NZ
I've posted the slides from my presentation about Stratofox at the Carter Observatory in Wellington, New Zealand on April 7.

Sat, 24 Mar 2007

Space Access '07 Conference, Phoenix, Arizona, Mar 22-24, 2007
I posted my notes from the Space Access '07 conference in Phoenix, Arizona on March 22-24, 2007.

Mon, 12 Feb 2007

Pictures from Stratofox Crater Assault 1, Jan 28, 2007
Stratofox members went on expedition to Black Rock which we called Stratofox Crater Assault 1 on January 28, 2007. The purpose of the trip was to investigate the theory of an impact crater at Black Rock and collect rock samples.

Mon, 13 Nov 2006

X Prize Cup, October 20-21, 2006
I've had my pictures uploaded since just after the event. But things like my day job got priority since I got back. Three weeks later I've finally posted my write-up of the X Prize Cup 2006 which took place Oct 20-21 in Las Cruces, NM.

Tue, 26 Sep 2006

Shuttle Debris Search, Day 2
I posted pictures from the second of 2 days searching for shuttle debris in southern Utah.

Mon, 25 Sep 2006

Shuttle Debris Search, Day 1
I posted pictures from the first of 2 days searching for shuttle debris in southern Utah.

Sun, 10 Sep 2006

Pictures from Stratofox 3, Sept 2006
My pictures from the Stratofox 3 camping trip to the Black Rock Desert on September 8-10, 2006.

Fri, 26 Nov 2004

Stratofox recovers missing CSXT booster
On Nov 26, 2004, Stratofox recovered the missing rocket booster from the CSXT Space Shot 2004 from snow-covered mountains in Nevada.

Mon, 04 Oct 2004

Pictures of SpaceShipOne, Oct 4, 2004
Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne won the XPrize on Oct 4. See my pictures and others' at Stratofox.

Tue, 18 May 2004

CSXT SpaceShot 2004, May 17-18, 2004
Pictures by Stratofox members (including me) from the CSXT SpaceShot 2004, the world's first amateur rocket launch to space.

Sun, 24 Aug 2003

Pictures from Stratofox 2, Aug 2003
My pictures from the Stratofox 2 camping trip to the Black Rock Desert on August 22-24, 2003.

Sat, 01 Feb 2003

Eyewitness to STS-107 Columbia disaster
I was an eyewitness to the re-entry of the Space Shuttle Columbia from Mount Hamilton near San Jose, California as it left a strangely-smoky trail across the sky on Feb 1, 2003. See my article, "Report from Viewing the Re-entry of STS-107".

Sun, 08 Sep 2002

Pictures from Stratofox 1, Sept 2002
My pictures from the Stratofox 1 camping trip to the Black Rock Desert on September 6-8, 2002.

Tue, 26 Mar 2002

JP Aerospace's DSS3/Oklahoma, March 2002
My pictures from JP Aerospace's Dark Sky Station 3 mission, the inaugural flight from the Oklahoma Spaceport, March 23-24, 2002

[/aerospace/jpa] permanent link

Tue, 02 Mar 1999

Rotary Rocket Company's Roton ATV rollout ceremony, March 1, 1999
See my photos of Rotart Rocket Company's Roton ATV rollout ceremony on March 1, 1999 at the Mojave Airport.