Gondola Overview
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The BOPPS gondola is composed of an aluminum frame that carries and 
protects the science payload and subsystems and is the link with the 
balloon flight train. The gondola subsystems are composed of a Command and 
Control subsystem, a Pointing Control subsystem, a Power subsystem, and a 
Balloon Control and Telecommunications subsystem. All subsystems were a 
reuse from the Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory (STO) mission.

The gondola was sized to hold the 80cm aperture STO telescope. Its basic 
design was similar to the successful STO gondola frame but with a number 
of functional improvements. The frame was designed to be scalable to 
accommodate up to a 1.5-meter class telescope. Structural and frequency 
analysis of the new frame were performed to ensure that the structure was 
strong enough to support up to 5000 pounds even under the 10g shock 
experienced at the end of the flight when the parachute was released, and 
stiff enough to guarantee the pointing stability required for the BOPPS 
mission.