Phileas Kick off Workshop, Wien, Booz Allen Hamilton

Norbert's former employer kindly allocated a conference room. We met at Booz Allen Hamilton (Kärntnerring, Vienna). Sufficiently supplied with soft drinks, coffee and even ring cakes we were also impressed by the technical support involving beamers and internet access.

At first we clarified organisation themes like the usage of wikis and bulletin boards, document management and contact with new volunteers and advisers. The Polares Groupware tool (http://lunarsat.uibk.ac.at/egroupware/) must be the main communication base and working tool used to provide information for all personnel and to track data. Then we continued discussing more technical aspects, namely Phileas' interior. As common in the area of astronautics during a so-called "trade off" we collected pairs of interdependent aspects (for example solar cells vs. fuel cells) without going into detail yet. After listing quite a number of items a discussion started about the details. Though the requirement has been predefined by 80/80/80 we soon realised that first we had to clarify how this requirement was understood by each of us. For example: it does not seem to be necessary for Phileas to work at temperatures of 80°C below zero but still it must survive this condition! Especially testing issues about withstanding coldness were debated. Eventually a supermarket's storage room (which works at temperatures down to 30°C below zero) was recommended to conduct the tests. Certain parts may be lead to the point of maximum strain in refrigerators found in biology laboratories (-100°C). Other important aspects of Phileas like its aspired size, mass and the vehicle's maximum speed were discussed intensely. Should the rover be planned like a model car to easily get cheap spare parts or will it be a monster of more than 100 kg? Is a speed of 4 km/h enough to follow an astronaut or will 6 km/h a rather better approach? We decided to go for 6 km/h to gain some margin.

Michael Taraba contributed some interesting inputs from Passepartout. First he replayed the launch of the balloon from October, 4th 2007 and showed what may go wrong. Since Avionics for Phileas will be adopted from Passepartout for a good part we got first hand information about the current status. Likewise Michael spoke about his experiences about work procedures and organisation of his team.
We also liked to speak about themes like super conduction, radioisotope thermoelectric generators, landing on the moon and more until the conversation gained some philosophical touch.

Late in the evening we were very tired but satisfied about the project's start. Finally some had to leave for home and storm Emma began to give notice but all of us arrived at home well (and with some new tasks).