Launch Announcement - 4th December (5:45am) London - Mission Impoppable 7

[Andrew Mulholland]

Another year, another group of Westminster school students have caught the ballooning bug!

After issues with ATC in July, this is the follow up attempt for that payload. The students are planning to move forward with a single launch from Vincent Square in central London tomorrow (Sunday 4th Dec) at 05:45am. This once again 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 balloon is a 1000g balloon aiming for 28km altitude.

The payload includes 2 identical custom Pi Pico trackers (only 1 is transmitting) with 2 identical high accuracy PM (2.5, 5 and 10) sensors, 2 NO2 sensors, a range of atmospheric sensors, a muon detector and a collection of cameras. In addition to this, there is a Raspberry Pi Flextrak sending back pictures and a Radiosonde backup.
The launch features 3 (transmitting) trackers. The duplicate Pi Pico (WSHAB3) won't be transmitting, only saving to SD card.

• 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.

• WSRTTY - 434.600MHz, RTTY 100 baud, 540Hz shift, ASCII-7, no parity, 2 stop bits - This is a reprogrammed Radiosonde RS41, only really there in case all else fails...

Predictions have it slowing drifting south right now, although there does seem to be some rather odd wind conditions tomorrow...

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

Many thanks
Andrew - Westminster School

[Andrew Mulholland]

So unfortunately the launch didn't go overly as planned... Although the payloads made it up, it seems the nylon cord (between the parachute and balloon) snapped at 1.4km above London...

Lucky, it came down and landed in a small park in Fulham (in the single small tree in the park).

So successful recovery, but unfortunately not as far as we would have liked...

Next attempt will hopefully take place in June/July.

Thanks for the help with tracking help!

Andrew

[Spike]

Good morning Andrew,

Thank you for the update.

Sorry that your flight did not quite go as intended :(

Several useful lessons for your students there; not the least that never
trust manufacture's specs (how do you test the tensile strength of a bit
of string?) and it's often the simple, "well proven" technology that
lets you down. Oh and inner city parks are essential ;-)

Best regards and greetings to your students
Spike

[stephen billings]

Pity the flight didn't go as you hoped.  And it ended in a tree.

It looks like you fell foul of one of the 'go wrong' laws of flying things.

 "If it flies, at some point, it will end up in a tree."

From looking at video's and personal experience, I can say this applies to R/C aircraft, HAB, Kites, model rockets and parachuting teddy bears.

I drop bears for a display at kite festivals.  I was testing out an idea, pre-fest, and the bear got stuck in a tree.  He was there for about 20 hours!

Stephen Billings.

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