2019 - Project Half-Life

Mission:

To measure the increase of cosmic background radiation as the balloon ascends

Date:

June 22, 2019

Status:

Mission Successful

Highest Altitude:

29,992 meters (98,401 feet)

Launch Site:

West Richland Washington

Flight Duration:

Listen to these two clips and note the change in beeping from the geiger counter. The first one is relatively low and near the Hanford Nuclear site.

This clip is further to the south over Hermiston, Oregon. There is near constant beeping from the geiger counter as the earth's atmospher is significantly thinner here. It makes you appreciate a little bit more how important our atmosphere is.

This was our first balloon using hydrogen gas instead of helium. Extensive experiments were run earlier to test how safe this would be. We still decided to create a perimiter and limit who could enter.

We realized after the Orondo launch that it would be a good idea to place contact information on the inside of the payload as well as the outside. This would be helpful if the balloon is lost for an extensive period of time and the outer information fades in the sunlight.

This is a nice view of the LIGO observatory which is designed to detect gravitational waves.

Looking East over the Tri-Cities (Richland, Pasco, Kennewick). In the distance you can see where the Snake River dumps into the Columbia River.

The payload hit the ground hard enough to knock off the lid.

Projected flight path

Actual flight path. Instead of landing in some easy to reach fields, we landed in hilly scrub land. This turned out to be much harder to reach than it might appear.

Group Photo