High Altitude Balloon Experiment
Codename: AHAB
About the project
This project is launching a (relatively) high altitude balloon carrying a number of digital cameras and some other instrumentation. The project was conceived and is being implemented in a short time with a crowd of eager volunteers and little prior experience and a lot of optimism.
Update: Test Flight!
After getting a few winks at the banks lake motel our posse headed out to a remote undisclosed location. Our team of crackerjack location planners used balloon tracking software to compile weather and windspeed data to simulate our flight and picked a location out the flight maps that would keep us from landing on railroad tracks, in a lake, on an airport runway, or hanford nuclear reservation.
The weather forecast wasn't good and our optimism was beat into submission by a layer of fog up to 2,000 feet and a layer of clouds from 2,000 to 80,000 feet... After a quick call to 1-800-wxbrief, we realized that we wouldn't be able to launch. The FAA requires at least 50% clear skies among other things and with only 250 feet of visibility in any direction, we decided to do a short tethered test.
This proved to be very valuable! Our systems all worked and we learned a lot!
In particular, we learned that the importance of test lists, supply inventories, spare parts, communication gear, and first aid equipment!
We all became better friends and will not rest until we return in month with better weather. We shall reach space!
Track the flight!
Today (March 4th) is the launch day!
Update 10:48AM: We're waiting for some fog to burn off, we are now aiming for a 1:30PM launch.
You can track the balloon's progress:
Want to add info to this wiki? Contact bre (at) makezine.com and I'll shoot it off to you!
Our mailing list is a google group.
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