LAUNCH DATE: Nov 14, 1998
LAUNCH TIME: 15:00 UTC - 08:00 MST
LAUNCH SITE: Windsor, Colorado
LAUNCH SITE COORDINATES:
TOUCHDOWN COORDINATES: (approximately)
ACTUAL TRACK: 105 Degrees, Approx 114 Miles
PREDICTED TRACK: 123.5 Degrees, 94.7 Miles
Error of 21.4 Miles on a bearing of 85.6 degrees from predicted landing point.
FLIGHT EXPERIMENT: Demonstration Project for Stars
PROJECT INTEGRATOR: EOSS
FREQUENCIES:
by Larry Cerney, N0STZ
Hello All;
EOSS flight 37 lifted off right at 0800 this morning (Saturday). We had about 20 students from Englewood HS and the Lockheed Martin Space Explorers viewing the flight. Thanks to all the students who got up early on a Saturday morning and drive about 75 miles to watch the launch. Hope you had a great time. Sorry I couldn't stick around longer.
I was stopped by a Windsor policeman as I left the launch site. I had to fill him in on the details of the flight. I guess some concerned citizen thought it best to have us checked out before we endangered some hapless flier. That matter cleared up, it was off to the chase.
The package we flew was our old and somewhat reliable shuttle II along with the WB4ETT beacon and AA0P's APRS digipeater with GPS. It was a good thing we had three separately trackable packages on the string. Shortly after launch Mike, W5VSI, noticed that the battery voltage onboard Shuttle II was down to around 10.5 volts. To save battery power we limited the use of ATV during the flight. It appears that we may have gotten a bad battery from the 12.5 year old surplus Lithium battery packs we use. The battery power, while low, continued to operate the telemetry from the shuttle until just around burst which was at around 96,000 feet. After burst, I don't believe we got any additional telemetry from the shuttle.
AA0P's APRS package worked fine through out the flight even though Jack was trying out a new 300 mW credit card transceiver in the package. The new transceiver worked great for those of us in the field, but there were some problems hearing it back at the launch site.
The flight lasted about two and a half hours and covered 114 miles from the launch site at a bearing of 105 degrees. The payloads were recovered by 1100 a mile South of Arikaree CO (don't blink or you'll miss it, population 5 or 6). After visiting Arikaree, we all met back at the Dairy King Restaurant in the thriving metropolis of Last Chance for lunch (population 30 or 40).
All in all, it was another good flight.......
Balloon Track for Windows Version 1.4.7 __________________________________________________________________________
Flight Recap
Friday, November 13, 1998 EOSS-37 DNR_98_11_14_1200Z.dat 10:17:48 AM Windsor wbaltrak.ini __________________________________________________________________________
Winds DataFile ----------------------- Station: DNR Date: 1200Z 14 NOV 98 DataFile Status: Intact Intact Records: 33 Corrupt Records: 0
Launch Site ----------------------- Launch Point: 40.4744� lat. -104.9628� long. Ascent Rate: 968 feet per minute Descent Rate: 1230 feet per minute Altitude: 5280 feet
Predicted Landing Site ----------------------- Landing Point: 39.7082� lat. -103.4749� long. Altitude: 5000 feet Flight Time: 123 Minutes Bearing: 123.5� True Range: 94.7 Mi.
Actual Landing Site ----------------------- Landing Point: 39.7314� lat. -103.0731� long. Bearing: 116.6� True Range: 112.2 Mi.
Difference from Predicted to Actual Landing Site -------------------------------------------------- Bearing: 85.6� True Range: 21.4 Mi.