Recap of EOSS-53

This page will be updated in the next few days to provide pertinent data.

LAUNCH DATE: December 1, 2001
LAUNCH TIME: 16:01 UTC, 09:01 MST
LAUNCH SITE: Deer Trail (see directions and map)

Launch Site - Deer Trail
-----------------------
Launch Point: 39.616� lat.   -104.0467� long.
Ascent Rate: 1112 feet per minute
Descent Rate: 1230 feet per minute
Altitude: 5180 feet
VOR Station - Byers(BVR)
-----------------------
Latitude: 39.7658� lat.
Longitude: -103.928� long.
Magnetic Offset: -10.0� from True Degrees
Predicted Landing Site
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Landing Point: 39.2276� lat.  -102.7258� long.
Altitude: 4501 feet
Flight Time: 112 Minutes
Bearing: 110.4� True
Range: 75.4 Mi.
Actual Landing Site
-----------------------
Landing Point: 38.9781� lat.  -102.7838� long.
Bearing: 122.7� True
Range: 80.6 Mi.
Difference from Predicted to Actual Landing Site
--------------------------------------------------
Bearing: 190.2� True
Range: 17.5 Mi.

Post Burst Predictions

Predicted Landing Site
-----------------------
Landing Point: 38.9848� lat.  -102.8605� long.
Altitude: 4501 feet
Flight Time: 30 Minutes
Bearing: 122.8� True
Range: 20.3 Mi.
Actual Landing Site
-----------------------
Landing Point: 38.9781� lat.  -102.7838� long.
Bearing: 118.4� True
Range: 24.1 Mi.
Difference from Predicted to Actual Landing Site
--------------------------------------------------
Bearing: 96.4� True
Range: 4.1 Mi.

Frequencies:

  • HF Net during Flight
    • 7235 KHz starting at 14:30 UTC (8:30am MDT)
  • Cutdown Beacon:
    • 147.555 MHz
  • APRS/GPS Tracking Payload
    • 144.340 MHz
    • Digipeating is encouraged this flight. See the digipeater page for details.
  • Tracking and Recovery Operations
    • 448.450 MHz (100 Hz tone) Pikes Peak FM Association (primary)
    • 449.450 MHz (103.5 Hz tone required) RMRL Repeater (backup)
    • 146.580 MHz simplex (in field use, usually at recovery site)
  • Simplex at Launch Site
    • 146.550 MHz

Experiments:

  • Nine (9) BalloonSats (used to be called CubeSats) created by CU students. There is a weight limit of 411 grams per BalloonSat

Tracking Grid Coordinates:

  • Last Chance =(25,68)
  • Deer Trail, the square on I-70 or the exit, not the black dot town, is (1,60)
  • Vona, on I-70 near Flagler, is (70,38)
  • Lindon is (35,68)
  • Punkin Center is (19,7)

CU Balloon Sat Flight Documents

Chris Koehler has forwarded along the student experiment proposals for the 9 balloon sats.

  1. Astrogliders (atmospheric studies)
  2. Multi-spectral (infrared/visible) photographic instrument
  3. Acoustic Analysis at various altitudes in the atmosphere
  4. Cloud Nine Photo and Temperature payload
  5. Team Europa will analyze baro, temp and photograph during ascent
  6. Team Koronas will run a "rudimentary weather sounding" device with photographic capability
  7. Project MS Hilt will be recording humidity, light intensity, and internal and external temperature.
  8. Pygmies will correlate GPS altitude with BARO. Photographic components included as well
  9. Odyssey will measure radiation levels (Gamma and Beta rays) as well as light intensity up to 100,000 feet.

Photos

Tracking and Recovery

Another recovered payload is in our record book. This one was harder and reminded me of EOSS-50.

We had a mix of trackers, APRS/GPS and radio DFing capable. We had some communications problems and good backups in coordinators.

Russ, KA0ULN took over when I lost coms. We had either placed almost everyone by then, or at least assigned them a planned spot. They continued on to those locations and we seemed to get good bearings from most of them. Paul's triangulation program worked well. Thanks for doing all the bearing recordings. Paul is planning on getting some data corrections and then posting the results on the web page.

This flight string was visually observed by several of the trackers through much of the flight. I didn't see it, darn. Since it was visible I let my procedures down and released too many trackers to proceed towards the landing site too soon. But it was visually observed as it landed, so we knew where it was.

We did not follow procedure with the actual recovery of the payloads. The CU balloon sat students always want to actually go out and recover their payloads. I forgot to mention this before and during the flight, and so will take the hit. Next time we fly the CU payloads, we should find the landing site, get permission to enter from the land owner, and then wait for the students to arrive.

I saw the pictures taken by K0CO of the flight string on the ground, and it was pretty detailed, great shots by the way Jack. One of the payloads separated during the flight. No idea where it might have landed.

Jack and Richard are the official cooks of the group. One of these flights we need the launch team to delay until we can get breakfast cooked for us, ha!

I didn't hear Roger WB0MTN after the tallyho and lost track of him, and I apologize for that.

So, all in all it was a success, we are at 53 consecutive successful recoveries. I had fun, and learned some things.

The next flight is scheduled for January 26, 2002. Hope to see you all there.

Benjie W�CBH.

Files

Charts

N�LP screen capture of his Telemetry and Tracking program.

Balloon Track vs. GPS

In the prediction program, Balloon Track calculates the speed and direction of travel by comparing the current and previous received packets for the purposes of a post burst predicted touchdown site. Here are a few charts that show the close correspondence these values have to the transient (instantaneous) values generated on board the balloon's GPS receiver.