Launch Announcement - 20th June (5:30am) London - Mission Impoppable 11

[Andrew Mulholland]

After the failed Mission Impoppable 10 launch back in December, the same group are back attempting one final launch. This launch is scheduled for 5:30am tomorrow (Friday 20th June).

If this launch does happen, it's likely to be the final Westminster School HAB launch, as a few months ago I departed for greener, snowier and more mountainous (abroad) teaching pastures.

My previous students are though (with support from a colleague and myself remotely) attempting one final launch, with their A-levels having finished off earlier today!

The wind conditions aren't right now ideal (with predictions coming down just inside the M25), so a final decision will be made in the morning.

As usual, this has special permission from the CAA along with a requirement to work closely with ATC on the day. The early start is a requirement from the CAA.

The current planned balloon is a 350g balloon, aiming for 17km altitude and a payload of 2KG.

The payload includes a range of atmospheric sensors and a camera. In addition to this, there is a Raspberry Pi Flextrak sending back pictures and a Radiosonde backup.

The real purpose of this flight though is testing their new flight controller board and code, with the plan for a larger flight later hopefully in the term.

The launch features 3 (transmitting) trackers.

• WSHAB1 - 434.275MHz, LoRa Mode 1 (including SSDV) - Raspberry Pi Flextrak

• WSHAB2 - 434.425MHz, LoRa Mode 1 (no SSDV, issues with mode 0, so had to go mode 1) - Custom Raspberry Pi Pico tracker. This one sends back most of the atmospheric data.

• FHS-RS1 - 434.600MHz,  Horus Binary 4FSK V2 on 434.600 Mhz - callsign FHS-RS1 - This is a reprogrammed Radiosonde RS41, only really there in case all else fails...

Predictions have it slowing drifting north east right now. I've fed a bunch of different predictions into our system (which pulls its predictions from Tawhiri) for potential bursts - https://predict.gbaman.info/

I know the students will appreciate any help tracking, if anyone happens to be up that time of the morning on a Friday! They won't be doing any tracking of their own of WS-RS1 (with it being a backup). Their focus will be WSHAB1 and WSHAB2 on LoRa.

Many thanks
Andrew and the Westminster School student team

[Andrew Mulholland]

In the end, unfavourable winds pushed the predictions all a little to close to major motorways (M25, M11), multiple towns (Epping and Harlow) and even an air ambulance base for comfort. As such, the team have decided the risk was a little too high and so the launch has been postponed. 

A great lesson in evaluating risk and impact vs reward though! Risk assessment 101...

The full range of possibilities (assuming some inaccurate filling)

Hopefully, they shall try again at some point in the next few weeks.

Many thanks
Andrew and the Westminster School student team

[Nick McCloud]

On Thursday, 19 June 2025 at 23:08:42 UTC+1 Andrew Mulholland wrote:

If this launch does happen, it's likely to be the final Westminster School HAB launch, as a few months ago I departed for greener, snowier and more mountainous (abroad) teaching pastures.

My previous students are though (with support from a colleague and myself remotely) attempting one final launch, with their A-levels having finished off earlier today!

Is the source for your bespoke predictor available anywhere - a very useful tool to have me thinks!

 

[Steve]

Great to see folk taking safety seriously.

    Steve G8KHW

On 20/06/2025 05:57, Andrew Mulholland wrote:
> As such, the team have decided the risk was a little too high and so
> the launch has been postponed.

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[Nick McCloud]

Dang, Safari bites again - figure out it wasn't scrolling (just zooming the map) and found the details at the bottom!

Thanks for sharing

[Nick McCloud]

On Saturday, 21 June 2025 at 11:37:32 UTC+1 Steve wrote:

Great to see folk taking safety seriously.

Spent yesterday optimistically building a payload with students, radios, predictions etc.

Then we all had to chat on the perils of driving a minibus from the middle of no-where, over the M6 and on to a different middle of no-where, mostly B roads on both sides for 3 hours, collect and return home! 

So not even the landing area, but driver fatigue and the realistic expectations of keeping 12 x year 7 students occupied in a minibus!

[Steve]

The hardware/software/electronics part of HABing is often the simplest part.

    Steve G8KHW

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[Andrew Mulholland]

Yeah, an odd bug that's been in the system for a while. I was initially built in 2-3 hours, so very rough around the edges! But, I've been inspired to at least fix that today.