BallastHalo 4 - Launch - Advanced Warning: 6/2/10
James Coxon
Just to get the ball rolling - I'm hoping to launch BallastHalo 4 on
the weekend 5/6/7 Feb from Cambridge. This will be another attempt to
test ballast tanks with some modifications on the last flight. More
info can be found
http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/wiki/doku.php/missions:ballasthalo:ballasthalo4
.
How can people help?
1) Helping out with the launch - planning to launch with Cambridge so
people to help with actual launch would be great so I can focus on the
payload - also the more help we have the easier it'll be to launch at
the right time to achieve float.
2) Listen and Track - the more the merrier especially those on the
flight path and a bit further afield - if anyone is willing to
volunteer to coordinate that would be really helpful (it would be an
easy job!). The other job is to find people to track if the payload
gets blown outside the UK so will be looking for Irish, French, Dutch,
Danish hams to be prepared to listen out - as has been proved we get
over 400km range so its worth people having a go at listening. Also
having someone around online to help out with setting up dl-fldigi etc
would be great as well.
3) System analysis - I'll put up the flight computer code and also
pseudo-code so you can find my mistakes :-p
4) Moral support! get on to #highaltitude and chat about the flight,
plot flight predictions and be there for the moment when the the
flight computer attempts to dump ballast...
Will update the wiki page as I work on the payload!
James
M6JCX
http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk
James Coxon
Apologies for the lack of contact over the past week, currently
looking at the jetstream forecasts and running potential trajectories
the winds are quite blowey, a launch at 15:00 on Sat 6/2/10 will
certainly cross the channel towards Belgium and then Germany and could
go a lot futher!
The plan presently is to continue working towards a Saturday launch
and review the weather forecasts tomorrow evening and make a decision
then.
James
M6JCX
http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/wiki/doku.php/missions:ballasthalo:ballasthalo4