Author Archives: Grant

Horus 40 Flight Report: January 2nd 2017

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On Monday January 2nd 2017, the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group launched a test flight of some new telemetry equipment, and trialed the updated Wenet SSDV system being developed by the group. The aim was to validate some new software ready for a dual flight being planned for January 22nd for the Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program (SHSSP) run by the University of South Australia.

Launch Preparations

The payloads being flown this flight included:

  • RTTY Telemetry (434.650 MHz 8N1 ASCII 100baud) – The usual RTTY payload as has flown in the past.
  • Flight Control payload (TDMA) – we use this for telecommand to terminate the flight at the right altitude
  • Secondary Test Flight Control Payload (TDMA) – In-air test of new TDMA software updates.
  • Wenet Imagery Payload – 441.200 MHz 115Kbit/s Wideband FSK
  • GoPro HD Hero 3 Video Payload – 25fps 1080p video – to be collected after landing

Wenet had been upgraded this flight to send back 1920×1080 frames and include on each frame some telemetry information too!

Balloon Launch Crew

On the ground, we had a large contingent of members from the Project Horus team. Matt VK5ZM lead the assembly of the balloon payload train while Mark VK5QI tended to the payloads. Grant VK5GR, Josh VK5JO, Gary VK5FGRY and Andrew VK5XFG set about filling the balloon.

Liftoff went flawlessly, which meant the chase and tracking was next.

Flight Ground Tracking Network

As in Flight 39, Peter VK5KX and crew stationed themselves on top of a hill over looking Palmer in the Adelaide Hills. From there, he was able to receive much of the data from the Wenet transmitter carrying the SSDV data.

When the balloon reached 15km altitude and was almost directly overhead, he also reported that using a telescope he was able to get a visual lock on the balloon for a time!

Bob VK5FO and Ray VK5RR operated ground control No.2 from their home near Waikerie in the Riverland. Bob reported:

“We were really trying to run several experiments on our rx capability and do a bit of a shakedown before the Dual launch. Some things worked, some things failed – but we have a much better insight into what is needed.

First off the Good.

Wenet – both of our Wenet RX set ups worked great – well, WinSDR, Pre-Amp and Laptop with software.  We again used a dual-band white stick antenna – so about 8db gain on 70cm.  We were able to RX images from 1,800M up to 25,000M and then from 25,000 back down to just 900M!  Abovr 25,000M we did see some data, but not reliable at all.

Our 2nd Antenna – we used for experimenting with was nothing more than a mobile dual band whip – and we may as well have not bothered from this distance – 4.5db gain does not cut it.

This is very similar to what we experienced the previous flight – but this flight was much closer to us – about 90km v’s the 120-130km of the last one and as a result we had rock-solid +10db WENET signals for most of the flight – except when it was very close to the ground and again once it flew out of the antenna pattern over 25,000M

Except during the extremes, we had almost 100% decode on all images – well over 100Meg of images in the images directory!

…and then the not so good…

We had a lot of trouble even hearing the RTTY telemetry – and it was not until it was about 6,000M that we even heard it!  We used our usual set up – of the IC-7100 in the car with a dual-band mobile whip to RX – and this is what we have used in the past without issue – Not so much of an Issue – except that it provides useful information WRT the Az and El of the balloon from your location – which might be needed – especially to be able to track the Payload with a directional array.

I suspect that we were had the car parked behind the shed and it was causing us to sit in the shadow of the flight until it hit the 6,000M mark.  This is something easily rectified on the next flight – move the car or put the antenna on the shed roof!

As usual, the RTTY should be able to be decoded by anyone within about 100km with a fairly simple antenna, further with a little bit of gain.

So, while not everything was perfect, we were very happy with the resultant WENET Images we received.”

Flight Data

The end result of all of the ground station work was that the Wenet SSDV image payload worked a treat, Here is a slideshow of the pictures captured:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In addition, a GoPro was flown on the flight. The payload container this time suffered from some stability issues and so the images are not fantastic quality, but we did get some excellent frames out of the video at the time of balloon separation due to the tumbling. A number of selfies were taken of the other payloads and the parachute just as decent began. Check out the video here:

Flight Statistics

The flight itself was almost a text book affair. The flight track can be seen in the following animation created by Grant VK5GR from the telemetry raw data.

The vital statistics are:

[table “” not found /]

 

The final flight tracks can be seen here:

Maps from in car trackers

maps from HabHub.org

Chase & Telemetry Teams

The chase tracking for this flight was carried out by three teams this flight. Matt VK5ZM formed a team with Grant VK5GR, Josh VK5JO and Andrew VK5XFG, Andy VK5AKH had a team with Will Anthony VK5AHV, Darin VK5IX and his son Cam, and Mark VK5QI had a team with David VK5DGR and Gary VK5FGRY.

The chase teams in particular were using this flight to also get ready for the big dual flight planned on January 22nd.

The team would like to thank all of the following stations for their contribution to the  telemetry collection effort:

VK5AKK VK5DF VK5EU VK5FTAZ VK5KJP VK5KX VK5NEX VK5NG VK5QI-1 VK5QI-9 VK5RR VK5ZEA VK5ZM VK5ZRL

Recovering Horus 40

The team had always planned on terminating the flight early as trying to recover the payloads in the Adelaide Hills, particularly the fairly remote eastern side is never easy. There were a number of tense minutes when the trigger mechanism appeared not to work, causing the balloon to fly further east than planned. Our worst nightmares looked like they were then going to materialize with a landing targeting the mountain goat country on the back of the escarpment. Fortunately, the payloads landed in a relatively accessible location, not far from an access road. A short hike up a hill and everything was found intact laid out before us awaiting collection.

 

Conclusion

Everyone declared Horus 40 a success, despite the issues with the delayed flight termination. Some fantastic images were obtained of Adelaide from 26km altitude, encouraging the team to continue to fly the SSDV payloads and enhance the ground station tracking systems. (More on that to follow).

Regards, The Project Horus team

Horus 39: December 3rd 2016 Flight Report

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On Saturday December 3rd 2016, the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group launched the Tea Tree Gully Library mascot, Anstey the Echidna into the stratosphere as part of her next big adventure. In the past 12 months Anstey the Echidna has been to France, Italy, Ireland, Japan and New Zealand.

Flying an Echidna into near space is not without its challenges. It took a very large team of people from the Project Horus group within AREG, as well as a large number of amateur radio operators from across SE Australia to achieve this feat.

Launch Preparations

The first stage of the journey was to build the craft that would carry Anstey into the stratosphere. Mark VK5QI and Matt VK5ZM worked some long hours preparing the vehicle to make sure that not only would Anstey get a perfect view, but that those of us on the ground could also share her experience.

The cameras used included a GoPro Hero 3 and a Raspberry PiCam connected to the Wenet 115kBit/s 50mW data transmitter. This was only the second full flight of the Wenet system which has been co-developed by Mark VK5QI and David VK5DGR using an FSK modem developed by the team with help from Bill VK5DSP. (more on this shortly).

Balloon Launch Crew

On the ground, we had a large contingent of members from the Project Horus team. Matt VK5ZM lead the assembly of the balloon payload train while Mark VK5QI, Grant VK5GR, Kim VK5FJ and Gary VK5FGRY set about filling the balloon.

After the “Balloon meets tree” incident during Horus 38, we added an extra safety measure, with the release of a sounding balloon before the main launch.Grant VK5GR’s daughter, Amelia, did the honors.

Finally, the team from the Tea Tree Gully council started their Facebook live broadcast back to mission control and we prepared to send Anstey off into the sky on her epic journey.

Mission Control – Tea Tree Gully Library

Back at the library the staff had setup vk5bb-library“mission control” for the morning. Ben VK5BB and Olga VK5FOLG from AREG represented our club at the library and introduced themselves to David Brooks who organised the event. Ben goes on to report:

“David then performed the introductions, giving a little bit of history of the Tea Tree Gully area and how he believes that the local population growth was tied to events within both the USA and USSR space programs. In the back ground we were watching a number of video clips from the Launch site, looking at the equipment, Matt explaining what all the equipment in his vehicle was for, Mark explaining the tracking facilities in his car and the reporter doing his bit at launch time. 

David then introduced  Dr. Brent Gooden who was an expert in a number of fields, space suits, space medicine and Echidnas! He talked about how the Echidna was very well adapted physiologically wise to be able to take the rigors of space travel, all tongue in cheek but very well presented. Mean while on the wall behind the speakers, the images of Anstey were being displayed as they downloaded. Very nicely done!

Then I was invited to the rostrum to give a plug for AREG. I spent about 5 minutes talking about the history of AREG, Project Horus, that AREG was a “young” club and have a focus on radio technology and encouraging young people to look at STEM in their education which was well received.

I was well thanked by David and he publicly acknowledged that without AREG and Project Horus, this event would not have happened.”

Flight Ground Tracking Network

The next major component of the event was the flight ground tracking network. To retrieve the transmitted images from the balloon, we had positioned several stations around the state equipped with RTL-SDR dongles, pre-amps and the receiving software designed to collect the Wenet 115kBit/s telemetry stream. Station No.1 was Peter VK5KX and his partner Wendy, who camped on top of a hill overlooking Palmer on the eastern face of the Adelaide Hills.

tracking-data-recovery-centre-vk5kx

Ground Control Palmer – VK5KX

vk5kx-tracking-central

Ground control inside VK5KX

Peter reports “Wendy & I drove up to Palmer Saturday morning. We had to do some extra km’s due to chain of ponds road being closed, however we got there and rushed the setup completing everything in a nick of time. We were getting SSDV images before we had a lock on the balloon RTTY payload.

just_before_landing-mediumPointing the 5 element 70cm beam at a point in space to Rx the SSDV images was no easy task. I tried using a compass app on the phone, even a Theodolite app, but they were both giving erroneous readings, so I reverted back to a handheld magnetic compass. I did mange to get used to it and made a few notes as to where to point the beam and at what angle of elevation.  Some perfect images were decoded and uploaded.

After the balloon burst, we manageburst_and_parachute-mediumd to track it for some time before starting to have some issues decoding the RTTY. I could see the data clearly but the fl-digi window stayed red, only occasionally going green. To be investigated later. We went on to camp on the hill that night in preparation for Horus 40 on Sunday morning.

When Sunday arrived, the weather appeared with a vengeance. The winds
were so fierce that they nearly blew us away. It did managed to blow some seats and gear down the hill. Unfortunately in it’s path was the beam antenna on it’s tripod. I now need to do some maintenance on the beam.  I notified the Sunday launch crew that we were pulling the plug and then the fun began as we tried to expediently get all the gear in the bus somewhere. Then the rain started too, as I ventured 2/3 the way down the hill to retrieve a red plastic box, the trip back to the bus against the wind & uphill wasn’t pleasant…..”

Bob VK5FO and Ray VK5RR operated ground control No.2 from their home near Waikerie in the Riverland. Bob reported:

“at the last minute before the Launch, we were able to borrow an RTL-SDR and Pre-Amp in order to set up an additional station to RX the SSDV pictures from the Balloon. The RX station was set up in the Riverland, near Waikerie and was reporting Telemetry and Image data as VK5RR.

20161202-141417z-medium 36km_altitude_pic-medium

Given that the site was about 100km+ away from the flight path, it was actually an unknown if it would even RX any data. We monitored the flight data and once the Balloon hit around 6,000M we started to RX some telemetry. It was noted that once the signal got to around 6 or 7db above the noise floor it was getting consistent decodes.

Now, the Antenna used was not ideal – it is a typical “white stick 2/70 Dual band antenna, around 25M of RG-213 before the Pre-Amp. Once we were getting good decodes the RX site was left  unattended for the rest of the flight. We contributed to the image data on SSDV.habhub.org and noticed that at around the 27,000m mark  we lost RX of the image signal.  This was probably a null in the Antenna – given that this was probably around the 25 Degrees elevation from the RX location.

After the Balloon burst, we again started to RX Image data, and this time it was right down to approx 2,000M (at over 140km away).

On checking the recorded images, we had partial data on several, and nearly 100% of others.  A total of 127 Images (complete and partial) were received, and a total of 253 images of the flight were recorded and uploaded.  The RX site provided image data for around 1/2 of the images of this flight.”

We also had Kim VK5FJ receiving the balloon from Mt Barker as well as the two mobile recovery vehicles with VK5QI and VK5ZM, all who contributed some data to the successful images relayed back to Mission Control live from the balloon.

The following animation is compiled from the still images collected from the balloon SSDV telemetry system.

More details about the Wenet system designed by the Horus team and the SSDV platform provided by UKHAS and Phil Heron can be found elsewhere on the AREG site.

Flight Statistics

The flight itself was almost a text book affair. The flight track can be seen in the following animation created by Grant VK5GR from the telemetry raw data.

The vital statistics are:

[table “” not found /]

The team would like to thank all of the following stations for their contribution to the  telemetry collection effort:

VK5APR, VK5EU, VK5FTAZ, VK5KJP, VK5KX, VK5NEX, VK5PJ, VK5QI, VK5RR, VK5ZEA, VK5ZM

Recovering Anstey – in a field of Triticale

burst-mediumThe final act was for the balloon to burst and for Anstey to return to earth to tell her tale. The mobile tracking crews, based on the available predictions, had headed for Lameroo in the Murray Mallee about 250km east of Adelaide. Once the balloon burst however, we discovered that it was falling faster than predicted.

We determined that again the burst hadn’t been a clean one (confirmed with one of the SSDV images we collected) and along with the payloads, a large chunk of the balloon was coming back still attached! The drag of the parachute slowed the descent, but not as slow as originally planned, with the payloads eventually returning to earth at ~9m/s. This caused something of a scramble among the tracking teams as the landing suddenly looked to be about 30km short of where we expected. Fortunately, we weren’t that far away when it touched down, and a good fix from the beacons was obtained before the landing.

After about 20 minutes, we had located the land owners, who were curious to see what we had landed on their property. They were very helpful and friendly farmers who lead us to the landing site in our vehicles. We should have been able to drive right to the payload, except at the critical moment, the telemetry computer crashed in the VK5ZM chase car. So, out with the yagi and direction finding gear to find Anstey the old fashioned way.

After a further 15 minutes, and a hike across a 1m high crop paddock, Anstey was found safe and well.

Conclusion

Everyone declared Horus 39 a success, and looking at the comments and feedback received via social media, it would appear it was very well received by the amateur radio community across Australia as well. We are looking forward to the next time we can fly and hope you will come on the journey too! 73 de Project Horus, Adelaide!

HORUS 40 Balloon Flight: Sunday 4th Dec – CANCELLED

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horus-logo-blackThe flight planned for today had to be cancelled at the last minute due to the weather conditions at the launch site. Heavy rain and high winds just as we were to start filling the balloon forced us to call a halt to the proceedings.

The planned flight will now be rescheduled for the first few weeks back at school in the new year (first week of February is being considered)..

It is a very busy weekend for the Project Horus team within the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group. Yesterday (Saturday) we flew a payload for Tea Tree Gully Council Library. Today (Sunday) we are flying a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) payload through LaunchBox for a local Adelaide high school.

The predicted flight track for Horus 40 is below.

flight-track-satnight

The parameters being considered for this flight will make it a fast one, as we are aiming to prevent it landing in the inaccessible territory at the western end of Ngarkat Conservation Park, plus we have some less than favorable surface launch conditions to deal with in the morning according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Horus 40 Flight Details

Liftoff is planned for 10AM ACDT from Mt Barker High School. The payloads will be:

  • Standard RTTY Telemetry: 434.650 MHz, 100 baud ASCII-7N1
  • Wenet Imagery Payload: 441.200 MHz
  • LaunchBox payload
  • Flight Path Management and Control Payload

Tracking will be available via habhub.org habhublogo

SSDV imagery will be available via ssdv.habhub.org/VK5QI

How can you get involved?

Amateurs across SE Australia can contribute to the flight through RTTY telemetry data collection and forwarding to the Internet. Multiple members of AREG are also involved collecting the SSDV imagery data from the 115kbit/s high speed downlink. Follow the links from HabHub or on the AREG website for more details.

Anstey Echidna’s Balloon Flight – TODAY (Horus 39)

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Launch Preparations to fly Anstey the Echidna  into space are continuing. Her spacecraft is ready and flight plans are being reviewed ready for liftoff.

The AREG group who are flying this payload for the Tea Tree Gully Library have been working feverishly in the background building the payloads to carry Anstey on her epic journey. Mark VK5QI has worked some long hours to get everything ready, as has many members of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group looking to receive as much of the SSDV imagery as possible.

Launch is planned for 11:00am Saturday (barring unforsean circumstances). The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will have both it’s launch and chase teams on site from 10:00am to make the final preparations.

prediction-friday

The flight track prediction is also now firming up. It looks like it will be a long drive, with landing predicted to be north of Parrakie on the Adelaide to Pinnaroo road. Stations as far away as Melbourne should be able to hear the telemetry beacon as the balloon reaches apogee.

You can track the balloon payloads via one of the channels below:

  • Standard RTTY Telemetry: 434.650 MHz, 100 baud ASCII-7N1
  • Wenet Imagery payload: 441.200 MHz

This is the live track imagery.

 

How can you get involved?

The Horus telemetry system is based on a “distributed listener” principle with multiple receivers listening for the same frames, increasing the chance of picking them up correctly. Amateur Radio operators across SE Australiahabhublogo are encouraged to set up their 70cm receivers and tune to the 100 baud RTTY telemetry frequency of 434.650MHz.

The more people we have collecting telemetry data and forwarding it to the internet, the greater the chance of us recovering the payloads!

Instructions of what software to download and use to decode the telemetry and forward it to the Internet can be obtained from the habhub,org website.

Live Online Tracking Links

Tracking System Overview2

Also DONT FORGET, there is another balloon flying on Sunday for Launchbox – details to follow!

Balloons Balloons Balloons – Two Launches next weekend!

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horus-logo-blackProject Horus is having a very busy month! Next weekend, Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th of December we are flying a balloon on each day for two separate groups.

Saturday 3rd December – Tea Tree Gully Council – Horus 39

AREG was approached recently by the Tea Tree Gully Council Library to undertake a rather unique balloon flight. Their mascot, “Anstey the Echidna” wanted to go into space, having already been around the world to France, Italy, Ireland, Japan and New Zealand. Of course the Project Horus crew was happy to oblige!

Tea Tree Gully Library - Anstey in Space

Tea Tree Gully Library – Anstey in Space

We are hoping to not only record the film of Anstey’s journey on a GoPro camera, but the images from the flight are also going to hopefully be beamed down to earth live over the new ‘Wenet’ SSDV system that the project team is developing. Amateur Radio operators will be able to help out with the flight through telemetry collection from across SE Australia.

Horus 39 Flight Details

img_20161113_101045

Anstey checking out the previous flight, learning how it is done!

Liftoff is planned for 11:00am ACDT – 3rd December from a location near Mylor in the Adelaide Hills. The payloads will be:

  • Standard RTTY Telemetry: 434.650 MHz, 100 baud ASCII-7N1
  • “Anstey” the Space Echidna. + GoPro HD Hero 3
  • Wenet Imagery payload: 441.200 MHz
  • Emergency Jettison Module (in case Anstey’s spacecraft fails)

Anstey’s flight path is predicted to take her at least 30km up into the stratosphere, and roughly 150km down range into the Murray Mallee. AREG and North East Radio Club members will be tracking the flight from a number of locations, and will have chase teams following Anstey on her journey.

horus39-earlyflightprediction

Sunday 4th December – LaunchBox – STEM in Schools Program – Horus 40

The second flight of the weekend will take place on Sunday 4th December. This is a flight for LaunchBox for one of the Schools here in Adelaide. Once again student science experiments will be flown, hopefully inspiring more young people to take up a career in science.

Horus 40 Flight Details

Liftoff is planned for 10AM ACDT from Mt Barker High School. The payloads will be:

  • Standard RTTY Telemetry: 434.650 MHz, 100 baud ASCII-7N1
  • Wenet Imagery Payload: 441.200 MHz
  • LaunchBox payload
  • Flight Path Management and Control Payload

How can you get involved?

The Horus telemetry system is based on a “distributed listener” principle with multiple receivers listening for the same frames, increasing the chance of picking them up correctly. Amateur Radio operators across SE Australiahabhublogo are encouraged to set up their 70cm receivers and tune to the 100 baud RTTY telemetry frequency of 434.650MHz.

The more people we have collecting telemetry data and forwarding it to the internet, the greater the chance of us recovering the payloads!

Instructions of what software to download and use to decode the telemetry and forward it to the Internet can be obtained from the habhub,org website.

Live Online Tracking Links

Tracking System Overview2

Next Meeting: Friday Nov 25th: Live Balloon Imaging System

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Note: Changed meeting week this month – 4th Friday (not the normal 3rd)

SSDV Experimental Payload – ‘Wenet’

Mark VK5QI and David VK5DGR have been working on a slow scan digital image payload for the balloon system which transmits at 115kbit/s on a new downlink channel. This system makes uses of the UKHAS SSDV server to stitch together images from packets uploaded by multiple receivers. You can read more about the system on Mark VK5QI’s blog.

Unlike analog SSTV, SSDV sends down compressed JPEG images via some form of data link. Written by Philip Heron, the SSDV software converts a JPEG image into a set of packets which can be transmitted via a radio link and then re-assembled on the ground. Unlike regular JPEG images, if a packet is lost, SSDV will still produce a full image, albeit with some portions missing.

Wenet RX software running within a Ubuntu Virtual Machine

At the meeting Mark and David will give you an insight into how it works. This system will be demonstrated in the field as well during coming Horus flights.

Meeting Time

The clubrooms will be opened from 7.45pm with the presentation starting at 8.00pm. Visitors are most welcome! You will find us here:

[wpgmza id=”5″]

Horus 38: Flight Report – 13th November 2016

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Horus 38 was to be the first flight in a long time featuring horus-logo-blackpayloads only for AREG and the Project Horus group. It also marked the welcome return of Terry VK5VZI to the project (who had been travelling for work for some time), who brought many new faces to the event. It was fantastic to see new people taking an interest in Project Horus.

However, as always it seems when we try these flights for ourselves, Murphy seems to come out to play, ensuring things dont quite go to plan…..

The Flight Outline

The payloads for this flight were planned to be the standard 100 baud RTTY beacon, the SSDV live imaging payload (with improved modem software), several GoPro cameras (we had one pointing up and one pointing out – the plan being to see the balloon grow in size through the flight), and we had our commandable standard flight termination payload. The main objectives were to get some more video footage for AREG’s own use, and to conduct a further test of the SSDV system under flight conditions.

Flight Preparation

Preparations for lift off went smoothly and the balloon train was quickly assembled. Since all of the payloads had been pre-assembled, the weights of everything were already known which sped up the process of getting the flight off the ground.

SSDV Ground Station

In addition to the team at Mt Barker, we also had Peter VK5KX and Andrew VK5AKH setup at Palmer on the back of the Mt Lofty ranges ready to receive the SSDV telemetry and relay it to the Internet. We had high hopes that would improve the number of pictures we could capture during the flight.

Launch

This launch, like Horus 37, was conducted under challenging conditions with squalls and wind gusts sweeping through the area prior to lift off. The surface winds were proving unpredictable, with periods of calm followed by 40-50km/h winds. We had successfully launched in conditions like this previously, but like all things, our luck had to run out eventually, and so it did this day!

At release, the wind picked up again at the wrong moment. While we avoided the payloads hitting the ground when letting it go, it then encountered a more serious obstacle. A final gust of wind pushed the balloon train into the path of a tree on the edge of the oval. For a second we thought it might just clear it, but no – alas it collected it full on. Then, after an agonizing 20-30 seconds, it freed itself (although not before mashing the polystyrene payload boxes fairly well), only to get snagged a second time in the next street. There it met it’s destruction when three of the four payloads were ripped from the balloon. The RTTY beacon, the SSDV experiment and the camera payload were all left mangled and grounded, while only the balloon cutdown payload continued on it’s flight.

David VK5DGR has “kindly” conducted a post mortem of the event on his blog which you can see here:

After going and collecting our battered payloads, we regrouped. We still had a balloon in the air to chase. So, with that, we reconfigured our chase cars and switched primary tracking to the backup telemetry feed. Unfortunately this precluded most amateurs from joining in (as the secondary is also the flight termination telecommand system and so is deliberately kept somewhat obscure for obvious reasons). We apologies for not being able to involve everyone this time. Dont worry, however, because there are two more flights planned for the very near future!

The Flight

After the nasty takeoff, the flight itself went well. Murphy however wasn’t done with us yet. We had decided to bring the remaining payload down early, in order to make recovery as easy as possible. The button was pushed, the commands were acknowledged, but the payload didn’t detach! Hearts sank again as we realized we would have to track it all the way and hope that it didn’t land somewhere inaccessible. The pre-flight predictions were all based on the full payload weight being there. Once three quarters of it was left behind, the ascent rate became much higher, changing the landing zone (based on the original predicted burst height) considerably.

Luck wasn’t completely with Murphy however, and we finally had some when the balloon burst early of it’s own accord. At around 27km altitude, descent began, giving the ground crews a repreive and a relatively easy to recover landing location.

horus38-flightprofile

Flight Track Profile for Horus 38

The Recovery

At the end of the day, the teams converged on an empty paddock outside of Sanderston on the Murray Plains and collected the remains of the payload from the flight. Not an ideal day, but one which ended well with a successful recovery. The teams were close enough to actually see the balloon land, something we have missed for a few flights, so at least our tracking and tactical work is at the top of our game.

Flight Statistics

[table “” not found /]

Conclusion

There are lots of lessons to learn from this flight. The main one will be to reconsider the layout of the payloads on the balloon train. With three 70cm transmitters and one 70cm receiver we had taken to spacing out the payloads considerably. This long train is what compromised the take off, and ultimately lead to the partial failure of the flight. The team is also reviewing our flight manual to consider the surface winds in more detail. Ultimately, even after 38 flights, there is still more to learn. Thats the fascinating aspect of this corner of the hobby!

73’s till next time de Project Horus