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Artist impression of test space craft, mini-Romit-I.

Euroluna — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:20:38 -0800

Just up loaded an image of how we plan our test spacecraft, mini-Romit-I to look:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=708263&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=33...

The idea is to launch a double cube sat late this year, to test various of our components. The cube sat is not planned to reach the moon!! :)

It should test the image capabilities, on board computer and communication tools, including ground station arrangements.

Stay tuned for more information.

Palle

3rd Google lunar X PRIZE summit, Pasadena, CA, February 2010

Euroluna — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 02:40:45 -0800

Last month the Euroluna Team participated in the 3rd Google lunar X PRIZE summit, in Pasadena, California, USA. The summit took place at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, and included a visit to the many exiting developments happening there.

Here are some of the high lights:

Palle and Signe

New Ideas fro the Team Summit

Euroluna — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:04:59 -0800

I have just started the return trip from California from the Google Lunar X PRIZE Team Summit. The trip is long, of course, and with the time difference it feels longer! Starting from California in the morning, arriving the day after in the afternoon!.

All in all the meeting went well, and it was interesting to meet the GLXP people and the Teams again. There are some great folks here, all with the same passion for space and space exploration.

The GLPX Team certainly listened to the views of the Teams, and did what they could in order to accommodate the comments. Of course we did not expect all comments to be taken on board, also because the Teams have different views and realities.

The two main "sticky" points for our team relates to "waivers" and to insurance coverage. Here the traditions in Europe and in the US are so different, that it becomes a problem. I do not yet know if a solution can be found. Time will tell.

On the more positive side, there is broad consensus on the technical issues and now also on the media issues.

The visit to Nasa's Jet Propulsion Lab was great, they have very good facilities, and their support was very much appreciated.

During the meeting I also talked to a lot of the participants, among them, Randa from Interorbital Systems. Randa is in the process of testing an orbits rocket, and is planning the first orbital launch in December 2010. That time frame could fit us very well for a test launch, to check out par of our equipment under space conditions, and to get the ground segment set up. We will surely talk more with her about the detailed options.

Communication strategies

Euroluna — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:08:59 -0800

Title: Communication means and ways.

At the last Team summit, the issue of communication came up again, and it was emphasized that a significant part of the GLXP competition is to communicate about what we are doing, participating in the online life and generate output for the various media.

Two main channels are mandatory:
1. YouTupe, through regular video output from the Teams
2. GLXP Blog, through weekly blogging.

Other channels are of course considered and recommended, like twitter and Facebook.

Euroluna has now been active on all these 4 media for more than a year, with mixed results.

Our best results are with the YouTupe videos. We have, as of end January 2010, uploaded 24 videos, which has had a total
of 5503 video views and 1015 channel views. Perhaps one of my knowledgeable readers could explain the difference between these two numbers ? Should I add them ?
We have 17 subscribers, which might mean that these people gets an email, when we upload a new video ?

Anyway, we consider this a success, and worth building on!

Our other excellent result are with Twitter. Twitter is easy to use, and I have send perhaps 70 short messages to around 80 followers in the past year or so. I continue to get more people following what I write on this channel. I have to add, that I use it sparingly, as can be seen from the statistics of around 1 message per week. That is in a certain sense for philosophical reasons: I think it is a misuse of the channel to send out 10 messages per day. I prefer to have some news or some point to make, not just to increase the "noise" level, by writing every day.

With Facebook, my personal experience has been mixed. I do have a Facebook account, and Euroluna has a different one. However I use it mostly as a reading media, which give me some news about my friends.

And I still have not found out how to use all the facilities, and the possibilities.

Our website, euroluna.org, gets updates directly from twitter, as long as the applet works, which it does most of the time.....

I have also managed to put some of the twitters directly on to Facebook, but it goes to my page, not to the Euroluna page. That could probably be changed, by a Guro. Suggestions welcome.

Startting just the other day, Euroluna Facebook can now be added as a Fan page, which may give some additional benefits. Time will tell. If you read this, and has a Facebook account, please become a fan of Euroluna, then I can see the statistics!! :)

For the blogging, which we are now relaunching with a series of updates, the experience so far is not so positive. The GLXP blog pages are not intuitive to use, and the attack on the site in the fall, made it impossible to login to write a blog for a while. I am sure that GLXP send some information about how to bypass the problem. However when things like this does not work, they end in my "to do later, when I have more time" box, which tends to become permanent storage... :)

So it was only on the last Team Summit, that I got back to the login page (Thank you for your help, Amanda!!), to actually get to a point where upload of a blog again became possible.

In addition, I have to add, that we have had no feedback from any reader of the blog, I have seen no statistics of readers, or any other indications if what I write is ever read ;)

So as opposed to Twitter and YouTube, I simply do not yet know, if anyone is in there!!

"Is there anybody in there ?" [pink floyd]

So what about the future:

My personal view of the communication strategy for the future, all the be subject to a critical review by our press expert, Signe, is that we will continue with what we know is working, i.e. YouTube and Twitter. I will continue to twit more or less once a week, and also send a twit when we have a new blog or a new video.

In this way we should reinforce and link the 3 medias, which have significant different audience and scope.

For Facebook, for me the situation is not clear, time will tell.

Let me add, that I have also made an experiment with Google Wave, and got a public wave up and running. We also made a very successful use of a private Wave for our internal Master Team Agreement discussion. However, then the fact that one has to be on-line all the time, came in the way. :(

As an example of this, let me just add, that I am writing this at the LAX airport, waiting for a plane, and that I am not online.

For next week, a blog with a bit more on the Team Summit results is planned.

We are also considering to distribute the blog writing over the Team, asking Søren, Tor, Erik and others to contribute for instance once per month! I have not yet told them, but maybe they will read this blog!! :) ;) If any of them read this, or gets to know it without me or Signe having to tell them directly, the prize is a beer!! :)

And with this, I shall sign off for now, and upload to the blog, next time I have the chance, and see if I get any reactions!!! :)

Palle

PS: Oh, and by the way we made a new video:

Lab test of ground station and romit cubesat setup

Euroluna — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:17:10 -0700

Dear Reader and viewers!

Over the last couple of months the Euroluna team has been working on a testing application, we call it Romit-Cubesat, which is using the experiences from the cubesat community to see how far it could bring us.

We are in the process of testing the equipment in view of launching a cubesat net year, to test our command module under real space conditions, and thus pave the way for the same command module to serve us on for winning the prize.

Today we got the first simulated command send from the ground station and Romit-cubesat replied!

This is seen in the video below!

Palle

Soeren and Palle discuss cubesat option

Euroluna — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:47:25 -0700

Today Palle and Soeren are together in Switzerland discussing the various optiona ater Soerens return from US and Canada to visit the partners.

Here is a short video about that:

All the best

Palle and Soeren

Updated mission plan for Euroluna

Euroluna — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:57:00 -0700

During the last month, we have been updating our mission plan, and the necessary operational steps when we are released from the launch vehicle. The plan is presented here:

All the best

Palle

Søren presents a short video of the Romit spacecraft basics

Euroluna — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:15:50 -0700

In this short video, Søren Rasmussen presents a short video with a basic model of the Romit design. (he also tests a new video camera! :-) )

Palle

Presentation of Team Member Søren Rasmussen

Euroluna — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:25:43 -0700

Dear Fellow Travelers in this tour towards the moon. It is a pleasure to let Søren Rasmussen present himself to you!!

Palle

Presentation of new Euroluna Logo

Euroluna — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:56:32 -0700

Symbols are important and good symbols gives and extra benefits and more fun. During April and May, we have developed a new Logo for Euroluna, based on brilliant ideas of showing the moon and the earth in the same logo, and adding a symbol linked us to Europe.

In this video, Vice President Søren Rasmussen, presents the new logo, elaborated by good friends and collaborators in the Czech republic.

The basic view is a yellow moon on top of the blue earth!!

We will shortly update all our web pages to reflect the new logo.

Happy looking.

Palle