LOHAN's Punch and Judy show relaunches Thursday

Weather looking good for second pop at test flights

Following last weekend's cancellation of the Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) "Punch" and "Judy" test flights due to high winds, the team is relieved to announce that Thursday morning is looking good for a second pop.

Saturday's planned missions were scuppered by excessive gustiness at the Herefordshire launch site, which proved a great disappointment to the motley space crew who'd assembled for the big event. Here from L-R are Paul Shackleton, Rob Eastwood, Anthony Stirk, Dave Akerman and El Reg's Drew Cullen enjoying the bracing weather near Ross-on-Wye:

Well, we weren't prepared to take this setback lying down, and thanks to some nifty NOTAM footwork by Dave, have managed to get a green light for the rescheduled flights bright and early on Thursday.

Since it's a weekday, and people have crusts to earn, it'll fall to myself and Dave to get Punch and Judy aloft, although the task has been made easier by the fact the two payloads are pretty well good to go. Here are Punch...

...and Judy...

...and for full details on both payloads have a shufti right here.

The callsigns and frequencies will be:

Punch

• SPEARS: Callsign SPEARS, 434.645 MHz
• PAVA: Callsign PUNCH, 434.495
• Picam: Callsign RICHARD, frequency 434.525

Judy

• PAVA: Callsign JUDY, frequency 434.493

If you fancy joining us from the comfort of your PC, try the live vid stream from the launch site from around 7am UK time.

Once we get in the air, the live stream will switch to the pursuit vehicle right here, and you'll be able to follow the flights on a map at spacenear.us. Live Picam images from the Punch payload will be available here. ®

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More from the lovely LOHAN:

• You can find full LOHAN coverage right here.
• If you're new to LOHAN, seek out our mission summary for enlightenment.
• There are photos our our magnificent Vulture 2 spaceplane here, and detailed structural plans here.
• For your further viewing pleasure, we have all our photographic material stored on Flickr.
• Our LOHAN and Paper Aircraft Released Into Space (PARIS) videos live on YouTube.
• We sometimes indulge in light consensual tweeting, as you can see here.

LOHAN - A Special Projects Bureau production in association with...

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