January 27, 2003 Flight software
now online.
Success!
Mission 2002-4 was launched at 10:46 a.m. from the UND Steam Plant parking
lot. As planned, the balloon went through the exhaust plume of the plant,
taking mercury samples from the atmosphere as it went. John (WA0LPV)'s
data logger recorded both
air temperature and
air pressure during the flight. The
raw data is viewable as
text or an
Excel spreadsheet. Note: since the logger had to be
activated before the gondola was sealed up and tested, launch occurs at
around 30 minutes, Mission Elapsed Time, in this data. The sudden jump
in temperature is due to the gondola entering the hot exhaust plume from
the coal-fired boilers.
Launch Photos are now online!
Here are some more pics.
Thanks to all who helped and were involved with the launch:
Balloon wranglers Veronica and Dave, the hams: Milly KC0CRU, Charlie
KI0LS, John WA0LPV, Ryan KC0LMO, Mike KC0JBK, Dick KA0HDN, Kevin KC0MRZ,
Dean KC0LMP, Gerry N0NGW, Blaise KC0GHM, and Wally W0PHD.
Tim and Trish for payload prep and moral support. Sincere appologies
to anyone I forgot.
Here are some reports written by balloon group members:
(from John, N0RNB):
Saturday, Dec 14 dawned clear and
warm, with very little wind. Ideal launch conditions. I sent out an
email stating the obvious: it's a 'go' for launch. Since we hadn't
assigned some of the specifics like who was to bring the balloons and
support equipment, I drove over to the U to pick them up. Ryan and Mike
had beaten me to it, so I headed over to the steam plant. A quick word
with Ryan on the radio revealed the radar reflector had been left
behind: back to Clifford Hall (I even looked over the room for forgotten
items, but didn't spy it sitting there). Back to the steam plant. This
time Blaise chimed in on the repeater. Ryan and I headed over to EERC
to help him load helium cylinders into a pickup. Back at the plant
another oversight came to light: no one brought a wrench. Oops, I even
looked at mine that morning but thought, "Naw, there's one in the bag."
So, off to home to retrieve that essential tool. Finally we could begin
filling.
Finding a calm spot next to the building, I gassed the first
balloon while Charlie weighed his water jugs to find a suitable test
mass. We decided on the 7.5 pound one, which would give a lift of 15
total pounds between two balloons. The payload weighed 12 or 13 pounds,
so that would be sufficient lift to avoid another dreaded stratifier.
We certainly didn't want the balloon to get caught in a power line or
on a water tower, so getting it to atitude quickly was agreed to be a
'good thing'.
Two balloons filled, tied off to ballast jugs, and were being
watched over by Veronica and Dave. The payload was nearly ready, and
the chasers were getting a fix on the APRS tracking signal. This is
always the time I get agitated (some might even say pushey :). I have
nothing to do, the launch window is open, I imagine the weather
desperately trying to work up enough wind to dash the filled balloons
against something sharp, student pilots scanning the area for the balloon
so they can tangle their planes in it, etc. Yeah, I probably worry
too much. In any case, the timing of payload prep and balloon prep
coincided this time probably better than any other mission we've done.
Kudos to Charlie and the crew for that! It was probably only five
minutes I had to wait while the plugs were taken out, the pump switched
on, and the timer reset. The tethers were hooked to the cutdown,
the payload walked out into the parking lot, and the balloons let slowly
up. The wind cooperated for the few seconds necessary and the package
was released at 10:46 a.m. The balloons bumped and fluttered a bit
more than I thought they might, but the whole works rose quickly
through the steam plant exhaust plume and moved away over town in an
east-southeast direction. The chase teams were off and Dave and I
packed up the support stuff and returned EERC's pickup to their lot.
I headed for the Dakota Science Center, and after waiting for
a train for 10 minutes finally got there. I wasn't expecting the
scope of the layout that greeted me. Milly, Dean, and Gerry were
helping out with a radio-day the Center was putting on. I entered their
room and was greeted by Milly, sitting at a desk with a rack of radios,
three laptop computers, and two video projectors that were displaying a
realtime track of the balloon position and a map of Minnesota. The
atmosphere was a bit like NASA's mission control in Houston TX, although
a bit scaled back. Other hams were outside, pointing a 2M beam by
hand to track the balloon signal. Reports from the chasers and Wally
were coming in. The only bad part was the signal was getting weak and
the tracking station was having a tough time getting positions. After
an hour or so Milly, Gerry, and I went outside to look at the building
and try to find a good place to mount a beam and rotator for future
missions. I then made a burger run and returned but the trackers were
out of radio range and the balloon channel was silent. A few reports
via cell phone revealed the balloon was down somewhere near the White
Earth reservation, where trees and terrain made tracking difficult.
After that, nothing. DSC wrapped up their operation around 4:30.
I got home at 5:00, took a much-needed nap, and waited for any word.
Both radio and phone were silent. The sky grew dark. My heart sank.
"Maybe this is the one," I thought, "maybe we won't get this one back."
At 6:30 I was headding out the door to the office Christmas party when
the phone rang. The caller ID came up "Denver, CO". Puzzled, I
answered it. It was Blaise. Turns out he wasn't in Denver, but at a
cozy little resort in MN. They had found the package on the property
of the resort, but the extraction had been a trial, involving many
aborted runs on ATV paths in a 4x4 pickup. The chase teams were being
treated to cheeseburgers by their hosts, and would return to town late
that night.
An adventurous mission to be sure, but alls well that ends
well. Great job everyone!
--
(from Mike, KC0JBK):
Now on to the narrative, for those of you who were wondering where we were.
After a not-so-leisurely chase, we finally got a signal for the balloon on
road 113 in Mahnomen county (we got packets regularly until about 7000
feet). We marked it on our gps's and tried to drive to it, a quite
heavily wooded area. We passed by the Hoot Owl Resort, and decided to go
it on our own (John's team, and my team). Driving down a trail (one meant
for quad bikes and 4x4's) we finally decided not to go any further because
of the risk of getting stuck (snow was on the ground). So, after getting
ourselves (especially me) turned around and unstuck, we went back to the
resort, feeling rather dejected that the package was only 2.27 mi away.
We wondered if maybe they had a quad bike we could borrow. We drove up to
the office area. John and Dick knocked on the door, and out comes Shirley,
co-owner of the Hoot Owl Resort. We explained to her our
predicament, and she proceeded to tell us that, sure we could borrow the
quad bike. But none of us really knew the lay of the land, so she said
maybe we should wait for her husband to get back. We're walking back up
to the cozy resort, go inside, and lo-and-behold, her husband drives in...
We tell him the story. He doesn't seem too skeptical, and even offers to
drive us in his 4x4 pickup (ladies in the front, and the rest in the box).
So we talk with him to figure out where to go, and he kindly tells us
that the trail we were on ends in a bridge that is out (we were quite
lucky!!). So we proceed to go into the back woods, following the gps
signal. We go further and further in (I have some of the first trip on
tape), and we realize very quickly that our low-riding cars could never
have made it even a quarter as far as we got. Driving, driving...1.06
miles away we have to stop. Can't go anymore. So we get out. John and
Dick trek up a large hill to get a DF reading, while the rest of the group
follows along the trail with the gps. We go as far as we can, and look at
the reading. .98 miles away, down, up, down, through heavily wooded areas
and swamps. No good. We proceed to ask if there is any other trail to
get to that point. Our gracious guides, Bill and his wife, tell us
that there is a trail about 3 miles down the road that will jog back and
might come back to this area.
So back to the resort. Driving back (avoiding the branches hitting our
heads) we hear Blaise and Charlie on the radio. We frantically try and
get a hold of them, but it is tough to get our puny 5w signals out to
them. Finally we get a hold of them and wait for them to find this very
beautiful resort. It is now after 3:00, and the sun is starting to sink
low. We set out for the next trail (Bill, Shirley, and Veronica in the
front, the other 8 of us in the box). Down the road in freezing wind, up
the trail, following the gps arrow, we get to a fork in the road. Do we
go left or right?? Right seems most direct, so right it is. A ways more
up the trail, we get to a shack and the end of the road. Ok, it's only
1.1 miles away, we can make it. So John, Charlie, Ryan, Blaise, Kevin
and myself start the trek out. Thirty minutes later, we are still
..76 miles away and it is starting to get dark. We decide to turn back,
while we could still see the fallen branches to trip over. We get back to
the truck. Bill and Shirley offer to allow us to stay overnight and go
searching in the morning, but say that there might be another chance. So
we drive back up the road, and where the fork was, we go right. Following
the gps arrow. Every time the arrow said we should turn, the road, almost
magically, turned in that direction. We thought this is too good to be
true...Driving, Driving, Driving...
..75mi, .5mi, .25mi, .20mi, .15mi, as close as we can get. It's almost
dark out but a gibbous moon is lighting our way. Blaise, Ryan, and
Charlie decide to brave the wilderness (we could see across a frozen open
area) with only a small flashlight, supplied by Bill. We are waiting
patiently, watching for the flash of a light in the trees, desperately
trying to contact the intrepid group to make sure they're still alive. As
they tell it, both GPS units (Ryan's and mine) had the same waypoint set,
but they got to a point where they both pointed in opposite directions
saying the package was 100 feet in both directions. Puzzled, they look
around. They don't hear the buzzer, but hear something like growling.
There goes the growling again...What could it be??? Ryan has a flash of
brilliance...It's the pump. There's the package, hanging ever so slightly
off the parachute. A little tug and it comes down (It's a good thing I
mis-programmed the pump ;) They make the trek back to the pickup, we
drive back to the resort, and Shirley insists that we stay for
cheeseburgers. We grudgingly comply, but boy did those burgers taste
good!!! I would definitely recommend the Hoot Owl Resort for a vacation
getaway, and would like to cordially thank Bill and Shirley for
their compassionate help, and going above and beyond the call of a Good
Samaritan.
(If I missed anything, please let me know).
FYI...We did hear the cut-down music.
Mike