Launch S901 Postreport

Status: Found

Original Launch Plans: (Here)

Project Manager's Summary

balloon_snow.jpg

On April 5, 2009 19 students launched 2 high altitude capsules containing radio tracking equipment, sensors and data collection computers. Sensors included temperature, pressure, acceleration, and CO2 sensors. All of the experiments were designed by the students and all hardware and computer software flown was created as a collaborative effort between nearly 20 student from the University of Idaho.

The capsules were attached to a weather balloon and release from outside of Spangle, WA at 8:00 am on Saturday morning. In order to get ready in time for this early morning launch, all participants met at 4:30 am at Moscow. The balloon ascended at 600 ft/min through the Earth's atmosphere until it reached an altitude of 95,000 ft where the balloon burst and the capsules started their parachute descent back to Earth. The balloons can grow to nearly 10 meters in diameter before they burst.

Students tracked the position and altitude of the capsules throughout the flight and were able to plot the position on a map real time during the mission. The students tracked the payload nearly to the ground but due to the rough terrain and snow were unable to recover the package that day. The University of Idaho snowmobile team was contacted to aid in the recovery effort. Members of the snowmobile team took two sleds and spent the entire day April 7th searching for the package. They were unable to see the balloon from the "ground" coordinates received from the balloon. This leads us to believe the balloon is most likely caught high in a tree and can't be seen from the ground. The picture on the right shows the area the balloon landed in.

We plan on posting the balloon as a geocache http://www.geocaching.com/ with a (possible) reward to encourage hikers to keep an eye out for it. We are also notifying hunters who may be in the area for turkey hunting. There are a few people in the class who are planning on making a weekend trip to go look for it also. Just because we haven't found it yet doesn't mean we won't!

There were many contributing factors to this event and we are working on ways to keep this from happening again. There was poor communication about our flight predictions, we didn't fly the cut-down system at the last minute, and our balloon's ascent rate was too low. We are planning on purchasing a flow regulator for the helium tanks to have an method of calculating the balloon's lift independent of weather. We are requiring a cut-down system to fly. We are also working on ways to facilitate the tracking and recovery planning as well as introduce new guidelines to avoid communication issues and any shortcuts.

Timeline

Left Moscow: 5:35
Arrived at Launch Site: 7:00
Balloon Launcn: 8:01
Balloon Burst: 10:29
Contact with Surface: 11:15
Recovered Capsule: 490:39
Arrived Home: 17:30

Highlights

Max altitude reached: 95,000 ft
% of packets received from each transmitter:
Max velocity (both horizontal and vertical) and altitude in which the velocity was reached:
Hor:
Vert:
Average ascent and descent rates:
Ascent: 00 ft/min
Descent: 00 ft/min
Ground distance traveled, separated into ascent distance and descent distance:
Ascent: 00 statute miles
Descent: 00 statute miles
Total: 00 statute miles
Total flight time separated into ascent time and descent time:
Ascent: 0:00 hh:mm
Descent: 0:00 hh:mm
Total: 0:00 hh:mm

Data

Raw Data

This is where you can find all the raw packets, telemetry, and pictures taken during the day.

Data Analysis

  • (Graphs/Plots)
    • Speed vs altitude
    • Altitude vs time - Plot both actual and predicted
    • Actual flight track vs predicted flight track plotted on the same map (with same starting location)

Pictures

Video

  • Balloon Cam Video

  • Launch Procedures

Individual Team Assessment

Link to an assessment page for each team
Each team post discussion of goals and outcomes, assessment of launch, top 3 lessons learned