On 9/21/2014, we launched out of Durham using a new payload design by Kory. We made it to 114888 ft with a 600g balloon.    Launch crew prepping in Durham. Note the water bottle dangling from the balloon; this is a common rig to estimate the desired 'neck lift' so that the balloon ascends at a particular desired rate (in this case 956g neck lift for a 685g payload mass).     The RDU area from 114000 feet  We were able to watch this flight land! Its red chute and foil radar reflector were quite visible within 3000ft. Above is a still from one of the on-board cameras showing our chase truck. The AP510 tracker with high altitude mod worked well for the entire flight ! There are still some firmware tweaks needed for its on-board temperature sensor, but I think this product is now ready for the HAB use. Our reliable bee tracker, though was sporadic. Perhaps an issue with a right-angle SMA connector -- more testing is required.   Lots of spirals in today's flight path. Those spirals, and an unexpected height led to quite a different track (blue) from predicted (yellow).   |
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