Pyramid Lake, Nevada on the right, Lake Tahoe in upper left from about 27,000 meters (90,000 feet). Note the thin blue line of Earth’s atmosphere and the dark of space above.
Despite weather and other conditions that delayed the 2020 launch of the High Hopes Balloon for weeks we successfully launched June 16th. The flight path did not follow the predicted path but it landed in a great spot for recovery about 100 meters off the road on the shore of a dry lake bed.
Helium is very hard to get right now so we had to inflate with hydrogen. Fortunately, we have the special suits and equipment to use a flammable gas. An advantage to hydrogen is it is considerably cheaper than helium. Dr. Wang inflated on his own while we wore masks and social distanced. The launch went smoothly, I got the honor of releasing, but soon afterwards the battery pack failed on the HAM radio transmitter that allows tracking the flight in real time. We use 2 SPOT satellite Trackers as back-up to locate the payloads once they land.
2 SPOTs worked out well because one of them failed as well. The 4 GoPro cameras all worked well. The payloads hit hard on landing and all 4 cameras broke off their mounts but continued to work.
The video below shows the launch, flight, burst and landing, including some still and slow motion. You’ll see the world’s “High Hopes” printed on biodegradable paper embedded with wildflower seeds being released using a payload originally designed by local students – I followed their plan to build and included 2 used surgical masks hanging from the bottom to honor our 1st responders.
In my last post I said I would update on the status of payloads and the recovery. The photo on the end of that post (also see below) showed the payloads hanging in a tree – that was all we knew thanks to Eric Wang – he snapped that photo and sent it to us to show he had found the payloads after back country skiing a total of 9 miles to get it.
He didn’t text anything more for hours because the weather was closing in, thunderstorms were forecast for later in the day, so they were in a hurry to get back.
But get them he did – the rocket was gone so we were anxious to download the video to see what happened. I picked up the payloads the next day – note the rocket launcher tube is split in half and hanging by the wires meant to ignite the motor. 4 GoPros now needed to be downloaded (4 to 6 hours of video). This shot from above 100,000 feet just before the balloon burst told the sad news (That’s Lake Tahoe to the right of the payload BTW). You can see the nose of the rocket sticking out from the right of the payload above it – it was supposed to launch from 60,000 feet, so the fact that it was still there at 100,000 feet explained all we needed to know. Note the soda can inside the payload – it came back intact and the students toasted the experiment with sips of “space soda.”
The post mortem afterwards suggests the wiring came loose at some point so no ignition.
Watching the video frame by frame provided evidence of the rocket’s fate. In this screen shot below you can see the rocket falling away to the left just after balloon burst. The strings caught the mount during free fall and busted it loose.
Below is video of the launch from the payload’s perspective. (NOTE: you can see the launch from the ground in my last post.)
Below is the balloon burst from above the south end of Lake Tahoe just above 100,000 feet.
And here is the landing in a tree on a ridge in California near Sierra At Tahoe ski area.
I visited the classes today that designed and built the payloads. I returned their payloads and showed them the videos. There was disappointment that the rocket didn’t launch, but mostly there was excitement and questions and numerous comments about how much they’d learned in the process.
They want to be part of next year’s High Hopes Project and have a very intriguing idea for an experiment. I won’t share too many specifics, but it involves a rocket and breaking the sound barrier.
A highlight of our year is always working with a school or schools to incorporate STEM into launching a high altitude balloon (weather balloon) with student designed payloads attached to altitudes near or above 100,000 feet.
Yesterday was no exception, AND we had the extra added excitement around attempting to launch a small rocket from above 60,000 feet via an altimeter and Arduino set up (we don’t know if that was successful yet).
Prepping rocket launch payload before attachment to balloon.
Helium is very hard to get these days so we filled with hydrogen, fortunately our friends at the University of Nevada, Reno, have all the fireproof suits, gloves, masks and grounding wires (so no static) necessary. They filled while I was in the classroom stringing the rocket payload since the students had re-designed and built it since I was last there. We filled early because we knew it might get a bit windy, and it did – easier to have the balloon filled and tethered than to try and fill in the wind.
After balloon was filled with hydrogen – fireproof suits still on but headgear removed.
Then once the drone was airborne to record the launch, we launched.
Launch filmed from drone.
We could tell almost right away it wasn’t following the predicted flight path … then it seemed to adjust in a more favorable direction … but next it turned due west and went exactly where we didn’t want it to go. Into the heavily forested mountains and over lakes.
Predicted flight path. 10 predictions at once. Yellow dots show predicted burst, blue predicted landing location. These are usually accurate enough, but today “unsettled” atmospherics threw it off.Actual flight track.
We packed up and began the recovery. We drove to Minden, Nevada, parked and watched the balloon high overhead until we saw it burst at over 100,000 feet. We followed it on aprs.fi (which provided the actual flight track above) and our 2 onboard Spot Trace trackers. Once we had a pretty good idea where it was going we continued the chase.
High point reported by aprs.fi – actual high point is a bit higher. We’ll find out once we get the Ham radio transceiver back as it records the actual high point.
After burst the payloads drop very quickly as there is not enough air to inflate the parachute (at that altitude you’re above 98% of the Earth’s atmosphere, considered “near space”). At about 50,000 feet the parachute starts doing its job. As we neared the reported landing spot we mapped out the closest roads for recovery. As we drove we ran into a large tree blocking one road and a large snow drift blocking the other, so we were on foot. Teacher Collin Belnap accompanied us on the recovery and he put together a video of the recovery attempt.
One mile became two and then the GPS pointed up a steep ridge. Despite hours of searching Lou Loftin, who works with me, found the spot the GPS claimed was the landing spot but he found nothing and exhaustion forced him to give up the search.
High on a ridge at over 8,000 feet the GPS claimed the balloon payloads were right here … but they are nowhere in sight.
Meanwhile, Dr. Eric Wang, mechanical engineering associate professor from the University of Nevada, Reno, who had helped with the launch was following our progress (or lack thereof) and decided he and a friend could back country ski to the spot which he had pinpointed. They’d approach from above via the Sierra at Tahoe ski area (closed for the season). So this morning they made the trek and all we’ve gotten back from them so far is this photo showing the parachute and payloads hanging in a tree.
We don’t know anything else … were they able to retrieve? Are they on their way back? I’ll keep you posted and share video, data and what we learn about the rocket launch!
