A New Step Towards the "Stratobus Idea": a Modular Pivot for Multiuser Platforms

The Pivot is a strategic part of stratospheric payload. It suspends all the experiments that need spinning in azimuth coordinate to looking for given sky targets independently from random rotation of balloon. Following the STRATOBUS idea many of the payload parts have undergone deep modification with respect to the early design. The goal is and will be the optimization of those parts capable of reducing campaign cost in such a way allowing more frequent flights beyond the atmosphere . Optimization means to make all the mechanical part like gondola frame and pivot modular as much as possible to allow reusing those modules not damaged at landing. The new concept of pivot maintains all the features of the previous design but it has been modified to go at the same pace of the STRATOBUS statements