Status: Minimum Success
Original Launch Plans: (Here)
Project Manager's Summary
On September 29, 2007 27 students (10 high school, 17 college) launched 3 high altitude capsules containing radio tracking equipment, sensors and data collection computers. Sensors included temperature, humidity, pressure, acceleration, and CO2 sensors as well as a solar cell experiment. All of the experiments were designed by the students and all hardware and computer software flown was created as a collaborative effort between nearly 50 student from both Moscow High School and the University of Idaho.
The capsules were attached to a weather balloon and release from outside of Sprague, WA at 9:15 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. This proves the dedication the students have for this project. The balloon ascended at 800 ft/min through the Earth's atmosphere until it reached an altitude of 87,000 ft where the balloon burst and the capsules started their parachute descent back to Earth. Students were able to see the balloon burst from the ground. One student noted " There was a white dot in the sky and then all the sudden, it disappeared" This is a first for the University of Idaho balloon group, no one on our team has ever watched a balloon pop with their own eyes before. The balloon is visible due to its large size at high altitudes. The balloons can grow to nearly 10 meters in diameter before they burst.
Students on board a school bus 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 all the way to the ground and were able to recover the payload within an hour of impact with the ground.
Timeline
| Left Moscow: | 5:30 |
| Arrived at Launch Site: | 7:38 |
| Balloon Launcn: | 9:15 |
| Balloon Burst: | 11:02 |
| Contact with Surface: | 11:43 |
| Recovered Capsule: | 12:40 |
| Arrived Home: | 13:27 (Launch Team) 13:20 (Recovery Team) |
Highlights
| Max altitude reached: | 87,400 ft | ||||||
| % of packets received from each transmitter: | |||||||
| Min/max temperature both inside and outside of capsule: |
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| Max velocity (both horizontal and vertical) and altitude in which the velocity was reached: |
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| Average ascent and descent rates: |
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| Ground distance traveled, separated into ascent distance and descent distance: |
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| Total flight time separated into ascent time and descent time: |
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Data
Raw Data
This is where you can find all the raw packets, telemetry, and pictures taken during the day.
Data Analysis
- (Graphs/Plots)
- Temperature (internal and external) vs Alt
- 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)
- One spread sheet with all flight data logged vs altitude saved in excel format
Pictures
Note: These are all ground shots of the group. Our high altitude camera couldn't make it for this flight.
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
