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Category: 2013
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NSTAR Flight 13-A at the Great Plains Super Launch was (eventually) a success, after a delayed recovery due to a double failure of the APRS trackers.  The N9XTN-11 tracker failed about two minutes after burst.  The NearSys KD4STH-12 tracker flying with us was intermittent, providing its last position reports about 5000 ft AGL.  The flight train was eventually spotted visually about 20 feet from the road after about 90 minutes of searching (and was almost overlooked despite the proximity to the road).  Landing site was about two miles south of Thornburg IA.  

After recovery, both the transmitter board and the container holding the lithium AA batteries were quite warm to the touch (estimated 130 °F).  My initial bench testing at first indicated no problems, then the board went dead.  It was sent back to the manufacturer but it powered up and functioned normally there.  After it returns to me, I'll be conducting more tests before returning this hardware to flight.

Both the still and video cameras ran from launch to landing.  Screen captures of the video showed several instances where the other flights were clearly visible.

A more detailed writeup will be provided later.