My girlfriend Christy filmed and snapped photos from the launch, so most of what you see here is her photography! In the back you can see J.Walt preparing our maps and our antenna in the background. (This was actually taken well into the flight when we decided to plot the balloon's location on a map manually)
Here's (unfortunatly) the only picture we have of the innards of the device we sent up. The lower compartments were divided off with styrofoam dividers and sealed together with "Great Stuff" spray on foam. This bonds the foam quite well. On top of these dividers we place the brains of the whole thing-- the radio and computer. The video camera slides into one compartment facing down, allowing easy removal and servicing.
We're getting ready to fill the balloon and do final checks on the payload. We've laid down our tarp to avoid popping the fragil balloon. You can see the helium tank in the background. At this point I'm still worried about having too little helium. We had 300 cubic feet but I didn't realize that 300 / 16 = plenty of pounds of lift (16 cubic feet per pound). Thanks to Pete Sias of Sky Science over Kansas for that one. Boy was I nervous about filling the balloon. Once we started that, there was no turning back.
We've just powered up the electronics and are ready to fill the balloon. The film is rolling and the batteries are draining, so we have to move fast.
Here we are, filling the balloon. I'm making sure I don't send 2500 psi into the balloon, and J.Walt is confidently holding our beautiful balloon. You can see brown stains on the bottom of the balloon-- we still don't know why our Kaymont balloons have this strange defect.
Here we have the closure of the balloon. This has to be the most nerve racking moment of the launch-- Sealing up the balloon, hoping it won't leak. Letting go of it was hard too.. It was going up and there was no stopping it once it was out of reach.
"Ok, I guess that's it!". This is a great batman picture of the device. You can see the eggbeater antenna on the left mast, and the foam insulated gps antenna on the right. The coke can is our cutdown device and houses a small estes rocket engine which will melt and separate the two pieces of tubing when a voltage is applied. This will let the balloon release free of the package and parachute on decent-- all under computer control. We used a small ridgid tube connecting the balloon to the payload in order to minimize spin. (Tube doesn't wind up easily)
There she goes! Whoo hoo! It's off the ground and sending good data.
J.Walt frequently calls the FAA. We let them know when the balloon is a concern to air traffic. (Below 60k feet).
From the ground, we maintain visual contact most of the time. Here I am wondering where it will land.
This picture was taken about 600 feet up. I could hear the camera engage from the ground!
The unit travels higher. Notice the sky is starting to darken. No, it's not night kids, we're leaving the troposphere!
We are just above the troposphere now, all the clouds are below us. This batman shot was taken when the balloon hit some turbulance (jet stream?)
The next few photos are between 75 and 93 thousand feet up.
Now we begin our 30 minute descent. Our cutdown mechanism failed because the ignitor burned without firing our rocket engine. The parachute is partially open and has some of the balloon draping on it.
Look! It landed in one piece! But the unit was so hot from the 115 degrees the Mojave desert graced us with that day. The only thing working at this point was the emergency 2 meter beacon.
There she is! J.Walt is as amazed as I am. Perfect landing. Now we have to walk back in this heat carrying DF gear *AND* the box.