Our launch has been delayed until June 5th and maybe not until the following week because of weather conditions. When we launch, a communications payload keeps us in touch with the balloon’s progress. Besides 2 SPOT Trackers that use satellite technology to pinpoint the balloons location once it lands (2 in case one fails) a HAM radio transceiver sends out a signal that we (and you) can watch live on a Google map. To do so go to aprs.fi on the web and type in KE7BQV-14 (See image below) AFTER WE LAUNCH. You’ll have to keep checking back here to see when we plan to launch. We’ll give you at least a day before notice.
After we launch, about every minute or so, a new red dot will appear on the map tracing the flight.
The image above traces a finished flight (usually about 90 tp 120 minutes) and demonstrates the box that opens when you click on a red dot – clicking on the red dots can be a bit frustrating at times, you might have to try more than once and be careful to click right on the dot. Note the information provided: Date and time, speed, compass heading (in this case 265 degrees), and altitude in feet.
In addition, I’ll be tweeting out progress as much as possible: @bcrosby
From a past High Hopes mission over 90,000 feet above Nevada. That’s Lake Tahoe on the left. At this altitude the balloon is in “near space” above 98% of the Earth’s atmosphere. Note the thin blue line of the atmosphere and the dark of space above.
We’re launching the world’s “High Hopes” to the edge of space on a high altitude balloon and then releasing them to float gently back to Earth. Its easy for you, your students, their families and anyone else to submit high hopes to be included. We’ll print them out on special biodegradable paper that is embedded with wildflower seeds so that upon landing your “Hopes” become one with the Earth – its very symbolic. Here is a link to the “High Hopes Project” blog where you can learn more.
You can easily submit your “hopes” for your learning, your community and the world here through a Google form. Or you can submit your “hopes” through Twitter by using the hashtag #hhpSTEM.
This is the shadow of the Moon from about 23,000 meters (75,000 feet) during a balloon launch we collaborated on with NASA in Idaho during the total eclipse in 2017High Hopes being released from above 90,000 feet during a mission in 2018.
I’m going to try and catch up on some long past due posts about the High Hopes Project. Last June we launched from Virginia City High School in Nevada. I posted about the preparation for the launchwhich will give you good background on the payloads students designed. The launch went flawlessly – perfect weather, not a puff of wind.
Besides the student payloads and GoPro cameras, we launched our Flir infrared camera as well which gave us some interesting perspectives. Note the shadows in this shot:
Note the long shadows from the early morning sun.
Then note what appear to be shadows in this screenshot taken from the video shot by our infrared camera soon after launch:
What appear to be shadows are not. They are cooler areas on the ground caused by the shadows of the balloon and students. Note the balloon has already been launched and is 200 feet in the air (or more), how could its shadow be where it was before it launched?
Here is video of the launch in infrared:
And here is the launch taken from the ground:
One of the student payloads was an interesting sound experiment. The question they were trying to answer was: “At high altitude above 98% of the Earth’s atmosphere, would the air be so thin that sound would not travel through the thin air to be picked up by a microphone?” The students designed a Tie-Fighter from Star Wars (just for fun) and had the Star Wars theme playing on a loop. You can see the ball shaped speaker in the center of the video. They insulated the base so sound would not travel through the payload and be picked up by the microphone. It started out great, but unfortunately at about 42,000 feet it just got too cold (probably around -10F) and the batteries, which had lasted for 3 hours when they did a test in a school freezer at 15F, just quit. We edited together video from launch and then spliced in at about 8,000 feet and then just before the batteries died:
Another student payload took on the engineering task of releasing the “High Hopes” of the world. Students and others from around the world had submitted their high hopes for their school, community and the world through a Google Form or Twitter (about 1100 were submitted). The “Hopes” were printed out and cut out individually and placed in a payload students had designed to open about an hour into the mission. Again the batteries they had tested, and lasted for 5 hours at 15F, that ran the motor that would open up the payload to release the high hopes failed. Fortunately they had designed in a back-up system. When the balloon burst and the payloads fell to Earth at over 200 miles per hour (until the parachute slowed them down at lower altitude) a fin on the side of their payload caught the wind and pulled open a side of the payload and released the high hopes.
High Hopes release at about 95,000 feet
Here is video of the burst and high hopes release in slow motion:
After a flight we like to note what happens to the balloon on the way up. Note in the photo at the top of this post the 2000 gram balloon is probably about 6 – 8 feet across (we over-filled it a bit so it would go up fast and come down before it got too far up in the mountains and private property). When it burst it was just a bit bigger:
At launch the payloads almost cover up the balloon.
But just before burst at 95,000 feet … note any difference in balloon size? If so, why?
Here are some more photos taken up high:
Burst
Lake Tahoe on the left, Pyramid Lake on the right at 92,000 feet
Yerington, Nevada, from 90,000 feet. A wide angle setting on this camera and the movement from falling exaggerates the Earth’s curve in the photo.
We came very close to “catching” this one on the way down, but were thwarted when we lost cell service (so GPS as well) at a key point in the descent and missed it by about 2 minutes.
NOTE: If you’d like to be part of this project you and your students can send us their “High Hopes” for their school, community and the world and we will launch them up high to 100,000 feet where they will be released to slowly drift down to the ground and become one with the Earth. We’ll print your hopes on biodegradable paper designed to compost. Send your “High Hopes” here or you can tweet them to us by using the hashtag #hhpSTEM.
We had planned on launching May 17, 2018, but somewhat unusual spring rains have made the high desert dirt roads we rely on a bit sloppy for recovery. Our current launch date is June 1, 2018, weather permitting.
This year Virginia City High School students are designing the engineering and science payloads that will reach altitudes of 80,000 to more than 100,000 feet.
Every “high hopes” launch includes payloads to carry and release the world’s high hopes that are printed out on biodegradable paper. Past designs have attempted to be mechanical in nature using a timer or altimeter to trigger a motor to spring a latch and release the “hopes.” However no group has successfully completed that kind of design, usually because of class time constraints, so they end up with a payload that relies on the chaos that ensues post balloon burst as the payloads plummet to the ground (before the parachute gets enough atmosphere to slow things down) to open flaps on the sides and release the “hopes” … which works well, but engineering motors, Arduinos, pulleys and all is intriguing, so we’ll see what happens.
Engineering payload motor driven latch release for world’s “high hopes.”
Another group is looking into gluing seeds to some of the high hopes in order to spread some flowers around the desert. They are researching what seeds they can distribute that way (don’t want to plant invasive species) and have contacted the local authorities about their idea. They are developing a water soluble glue that also might provide some nutrition for the seeds as well.
Mixing a trial batch of bio-degradable glue.
A payload designed to see how sound is effected by the thin atmosphere at high altitudes is taking on a Star Wars theme. The plan is to play the theme music from Star Wars while a camera records the image, but more importantly the sound during flight through a speaker that is insulated from vibrating the payload, so the sound must travel via the air. Does the thin air effect the sound?
This should be an interesting payload to fly!
Yet another group wants to test a design to protect plants from the freezing, dry conditions they’ll encounter during the flight (actually very much like conditions on Mars). They’ve set up a group of plants to launch and a identical set to stay on the ground to compare with. They are trying several different ways to insulate the seedlings and seeds they will launch.
Students have also set up a social media campaign including Twitter and Instagram to ask for others to submit their high hopes. Please send us your high hopes and we will launch them high into the stratosphere!
We finally managed to launch a balloon this fall. It’s been in the works for well over a month, maybe two. Weather and scheduling finally came together and we launched on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, from Virginia City High School‘s football field (in Nevada). Virginia City is best known for being home to Mark Twain, who lived, worked and wrote here in the 1860’s, the Comstock Lode gold and silver rush, as being one of the settings for the old Bonanza TV show and a rich history.
We launched about 8:30AM – it was hovering around the freezing mark and the sun was just high enough to start warming us a bit. Teacher Sarah Richardson had the honors to release the balloon after a quick countdown. Besides 3 of our GoPro cameras and various data loggers and communications gear, Sarah’s students had designed a payload to release the “high hopes” of the world we’d collected … including their own (over 700 high hopes were included in their payload) so they were intrigued to see how this whole launch thing works. The “outlooking camera” recorded this:
And the “downlooking camera” recorded this:
This launch was mostly about giving Sarah and her students some experience in how this works. The plan is now for them to design various payloads to carry out science and engineering investigations this spring … that will give them plenty of time to prepare. They designed the payload we launched by breaking into groups that each built a payload to release the high hopes which are printed out on small strips of paper. They then had trials that led to choosing the one we launched. They’ll use what they learned about payload construction and I will be visiting class to facilitate them through the process some, but most of that will fall to Sarah. Here is what the balloon burst looked like at 26,000 meters (85,000 feet) a bit less than 2 hours after launch:
In Quicktime you can play the video frame by frame which is awesome! You miss a lot in real time … besides the hunks of balloon that float by you can see high hopes fluttering through the air and one comes right at the camera and you can read it – “people everywhere” … because it is handwritten it must be one from Sarah’s class (the others were printed out) – I’m hoping we find out which student wrote it.
Folded “High Hope” with the words, “people everywhere” clearly visible – hope to find out what the rest said. About 85,000 feet, that’s Pyramid Lake in the middle of the screen shot.
I’ll be uploading some of the photos we took to Flickr when I get the chance and I’ll add a link to them.
A few weeks back I travelled with a NASA sponsored team to Idaho to launch high altitude balloons during the recent total eclipse. We sent up various cameras, data recorders and more (even an Idaho potato) to record data and media at high altitude during totality (being up above any possible weather or smoke is an added bonus). We travelled to Idaho from Reno and Las Vegas because that was where totality would occur. We only would have experienced a partial eclipse if we’d stayed home and would have missed out on important data you can only record during totality. Since then we have shared almost all the data and media we recorded and will continue to do so.
Partly because of that experience (and other NASA projects I’ve been allowed to be part of), my experience with the RECON project and because my job requires me to have a social media presence and share resources and experiences via those connections, NASA recruited me to take a flight on SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy). My flight is scheduled for September 25th – here’s the observation plan for that night. Needless to say I’m thrilled and honored to have this opportunity!
SOFIA over the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
I’ve been told we will takeoff about 7:00 PM and not land until 5:00 AM the next morning, so 10 hours in air.
SOFIA is a modified Boeing 747SP. Note the large door in it’s side that when open exposes a 2.5 meter (100 inch) wide reflecting infrared telescope to the sky.
So why put a telescope in a 747 and fly all night recording data? Seems expensive for something you can do on the ground from much larger telescopes.
SOFIA generally flies between 12,000 and 13,000 meters (39,000 and 43,000 feet), and that is important. It’s important because at those altitudes you are above most of the Earth’s atmosphere and humidity. The “Twinkling” of the stars in the sky experienced from the ground is caused by the starlight traveling through the atmosphere’s humidity and variations in temperature. You are also above clouds, most air pollution and other factors (like bad weather) that limit grounded telescopes from obtaining a clear view (also why the Hubble space telescope gets such awesome observations even though it is much smaller that many ground based telescopes on Earth).
ANNNND it will travel to the US east coast on October 5th to Chase Triton’s Shadow over the Atlantic Ocean.
From SOFIA’s media outlet: “As Neptune’s moon Triton passes in front of a distant star, it will cast a faint shadow on Earth’s surface. The team of researchers will carefully map the path of that shadow and then fly into it to study Triton’s atmosphere, directly, for the first time in 15 years. SOFIA will takeoff from Florida to catch the shadow that will fall over the Atlantic Ocean. The shadow is moving; the plane is moving; and the predicted path may change in flight, making catching the shadow very challenging. Researchers are trying to determine if Triton’s atmosphere is expanding or collapsing and if haze last seen by the Voyager mission is still present.” triton-final[1][1][1] (link to flyer)
I won’t be on the flight chasing Triton’s shadow (it happens over a week later than mine), but that gives me the opportunity to pass on what I learn about SOFIA in preparation for the October 5th flight. I will be presenting about Chasing Triton’s Shadow and SOFIA locally in Reno and I’m available to visit local schools and even video-conference in pretty much anywhere.
I’ll be adding more posts about SOFIA soon and you can follow me on Twitter @bcrosby. I’ll be uploading photos to FLICKR as well, I’ll post the link when I post photos.
Total Eclipse 2017, Camas ID, USA, by Dr. Jeffrey LaCombe
I’ve been back for awhile from our Eclipse Balloon Project launches. We’re still processing data we recorded from cameras and data loggers from 3 HAB balloon launches outside of Twin Falls, Idaho, (really from Camas, Idaho), but wanted to share some of the incredible visuals. Click on any photo to see enlarged.
This is the shadow of the Moon from about 23,000 meters (75,000 feet)
Video of the shadow moving across the Earth’s surface :
Total Eclipse 2017, Camas ID, USA, by Dr. Jeffrey LaCombe – Peekaboo
Total Eclipse 2017, Camas ID, USA, by Dr. Jeffrey LaCombe – Full Disk
Total Eclipse 2017, Camas ID, USA, by Dr. Jeffrey LaCombe – Prominences
The track of our flight. Starts at the top near Camas, Idaho.
The prediction was very accurate – this is actually 10 predictions on one screenshot – yellow dots are predicted burst and blue predicted landing spot:
ASTRA flight prediction
I did send up a small solar panel attached to a voltage data logger. We usually do this to record data on what happens to the voltage as the panel gets higher and much colder. But this is interesting for obvious reasons:
Note the voltage goes up as the altitude rises over time … then “something happens” that causes the voltage to drop to almost zero.
This balloon came down within sight of a temporary command center of sheriffs and other emergency personnel that had been set-up to help with the crowds and any issues that may have arisen. You’ll note that at the end of the data it seems to have gotten dark again. The sheriff investigated what had landed nearby and picked up our payload and placed it in their command vehicle until we showed up. Once we had described it they briefly handcuffed Dr. Wang and I for endangering the public … then had a good laugh and took the handcuffs off.
Dr. Eric Wang and I handcuffed with our payloads in hand.
Nothing too surprising about our temperature readings – at 28,000 meters (92,000 feet) it was about -42C :
I have other data as well I might post later.
We successfully launched 3 balloons – one got to over 110,000 feet, but we also had 2 balloons pop on the ground during and just after inflation – one seemed defective, the other probably got stressed in the relatively high winds at the launch site and popped just as we were connecting payloads. Fortunately we had enough gas to fill 2 more balloons.
