Mission: | Exceed an altitude of 120,000 feet |
Date: | Sept 4, 2021 |
Status: | Balloon recovered but failed mission |
Altitude: | 31,659.27 meters (103,869 feet) |
Site: | Stevens Pass Washington |
Duration: |
This was a mixed success project. We were able to successfull launch and recover the balloon. However there were a few issues.
Here was our original planned flight path assuming 3.0 meters per second lift. We ended up with only a bit over 2 meters per second which caused it to stall.
Note: temperature is from within the styrofoam payload package
Lessons:
Find more accurate method of getting correct amount of gas in the balloon. Perhaps a simple scale that can hold the weight of the gas canister and fill until it drops to a target. This would ensure that we get the correct weight of gas into the balloon. Using a thrust scale or flow meter is not reliable.
The software and hardware setup needs more error recovery workflows.
Although we didn't get any pictures from the air, here are a few from the ground.
This is John, the security guard at Stevens Pass giving us the thumbs up that we weren't up to no good in the parking lot.
The balloon parachuted forever. At least it was kind enough to land only a few hundred feet off the road.