The Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program (SHSSP) is jointly organised by the International Space University (ISU) and the University of South Australia. It is a unique, five week live-in experience focusing on an international, intercultural and interdisciplinary (3 “I”s) educational philosophy for which the ISU is renowned.

The SHSSP have asked the AREG who have considerable experience with high altitude ballooning in Australia to assist with their participant Stratospheric Balloon Project, culminating in a high altitude balloon launch on Australia Day, the 26th of January 2016.

The balloon launch will take place, weather conditions favourable, from the Mt. Barker High School in the Adelaide Hills, just east of Adelaide.

The launch is expected to be released between 09:30 to 09:45 am local CDST January 26th, or 23:00 to 23:15 UTC January 25th .

The balloon is expected to carry two payloads, one supplied by the SHSSP participants as part of their course project and the usual AREG/Horus telemetry payloads. Telemetry will the normal RTTY mode on 434.450 MHz USB.

Please keep your eyes on the AREG website for more details closer to the date.

Matthew, VK5ZM

UPDATE: 23rd January – Balloon will ID as AX5ARG-1!

As the launch is occurring on Australia day, and Radio Amateurs across Australia can also use the AX prefix on that day in their callsigns, AREG has determined that the callsign that the balloon RTTY telemetry beacon will use for this flight is AX5ARG-1.

To commemorate the special callsign, stations who provide evidence of receiving the telemetry beacon via the habhub tracking database (through the use of dl-fldigi) will be eligible for the special QSL card. We hope this will encourage more people to attempt to receive the balloon and relay the telemetry to the Internet during this flight!