USI October 8, 2009 Tethered Test Exercises Team

With a fortuitous two hour break in a steady rain, USI's fall 2009 High Altitude Ballooning team began rollout for a tethered test of their balloon system this past Thursday October 8 at noon. The test was meant to exercise the team in the runup to the planned flight on Saturday October 24.

This is the first high altitude ballooning experience for all of the student team members, and they coped brilliantly with the challenges of filling the balloon, preparing sample experiment pods and monitoring the command pod using two mobile antennas and one ground antenna. Telemetry data and GPS position data received via the ground antenna were monitored in Mission Control. The new StratoStar telemetry/GPS software worked extemely well on all six laptops involved in the test.

The team made use of a 1500 gram latex balloon first used in the March 17, 2009 tethered test. While its reuse served the purposes of Thursday's test, it was discovered during deflation to have a hole, and the balloon burst just as deflation was being completed.