FLIGHT RECAP OF EOSS-33

LAUNCH DATE: March 21, 1998
LAUNCH TIME: 15:30 UTC - 08:30MST
LAUNCH SITE: Windsor Colorado

  • 40 deg 28.526" North Latitude
  • 104 deg 57.678" West Longitude

BURST TIME: 16:58 UTC
BURST ALTITUDE: 94,405 ft. ASL

TOUCHDOWN TIME: 17:30 UTC (approx)
TOUCHDOWN COORDINATES:

  • 39 deg 59.0300" N
  • 104 deg 01.3359" W

TRACK: 122 Degrees, Approx 60 Miles

PREDICTED TRACK: 115.3 Degrees, 54.4 Miles

FLIGHT EXPERIMENT: Systems Tests
PROJECT INTEGRATOR: EOSS

FREQUENCIES:

  • Launch Site:
    • Simplex 146.550 MHz
  • Telemetry:
    • 144.340 MHz FM (1 Watt output) - The Packet telemetry stream is in ax.25 format at 1200 baud and is readable in plain english for the most part. GPS failed prior to launch.
  • GPS (independent)
    • 146.790 MHz with EOSS digi on board
  • ATV:
    • EOSS Shuttle Video - 426.250 MHz AM (1 Watt output) - NTSC video
  • Foxhunters:
    • 449.450 MHz Rocky Mountain Radio League
    • 146.58 MHz Simplex Field Frequency

notes:

ATV:

  • The Amateur Video Signals from the payload worked just fine.

Flight Recaps

by Larry Cerney, N0STZ

  • Flight of EOSS-33 went well yesterday with much learned. Mostly in troubleshooting. A couple of our Tracking and Recovery team were unable to help out with the flight which left us with only four teams. Less then what we're comfortable with. Then during the preflight checkout, the on board controller reported "Not receiving any GPS data". With only a half hour to launch time we called a hold and attempted to diagnosis the problem with no luck. The experiment on this flight was AA0P's stand-alone GPS digipeater package. So with our hopes on the success of the stand-alone unit giving us the information we needed, we flew with the crippled payload.

    The weather was perfect for the balloon launch, no wind and clear skies. We were flying to introduce to a group of very interested students the workings of our ground station operations. The STARS group (and I'm sorry I'm not sure what STARS means) have come forward and volunteered to run the ground station for us on the flights out of Northern Colorado. We whole heartedly agreed. The STARS group will save us hours of computer and radio setup time at zero dark early in the morning.

    The balloon flight went as planned with the balloon tracking very closely to the estimated flight path provided by Rick N0KKZ. The balloon landed about 60 miles South West of the launch site about 4 miles SW of the little town of Hoyt Colorado.

    Last night I investigated the cause of the failure of the on board GPS. I checked all the connections I had checked at the launch site and there was still not data but the power to the board was good everywhere I checked. I then installed an oscilloscope lead on the receive data from the GPS on the controller and re powered the payload and the GPS started sending serial data to the controller and everything came up working like it should. Just goes to prove again "Murphy's Law" is still alive.

    Next flight, EOSS-34, is April 25 with CU Boulder. The flight after that, EOSS-35, is scheduled for June 6 and it will be an attempt for maximum altitude. Our flights generally burst at between 87,000 to 95,000 feet and we've had one that reported bursting at 140,000 feet, but there has been much discussion that we weren't that high. With GPS able to report altitude for us, we should get a good reading this time.

    Stay tuned......

Photos

Data Files