NEWSFLASH: Project Horus Balloon Flight Sun 18th October

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On Sunday the 18th of October, at 10am Adelaide time, Project Horus will be conducting a high altitude balloon launch from the Mount Barker area. This launch will be flying payloads designed by Adelaide area high schools, along with the standard Project Horus telemetry payloads. The launch is expected to reach approximately 30km altitude, with telemetry receivable from most of VK3 and VK5. The launch site for this balloon will be closed to the general public due as school children are present, we thank you for your understanding.

Anyone wishing to help track the balloon is invited to listen out on 434.450MHz USB for the RTTY telemetry. This can be decoded with the standard dl-fldigi software.

  •  Main Telemetry: 100 baud 7N2 Telemetry on 434.450MHz USB +/- drift. Callsign will be VK5ARG-1.
  • We will also be flying a cut-down payload and an experimental ‘LoRa’ telemetry payload (431.650MHz).
  • An excellent dl-fldigi setup and tracking guide is available here: https://ukhas.org.uk/guides:tracking_guide

The Flight and Payload information for this launch will appear in dl-fldigi on Saturday the 17th. Tracking of the flight will be available on the HabHub Tracker page.

Current predictions, (as of Thursday the 15th), place the landing area somewhere between Pompoota and Bowhill:

Predicted landing area, as of the 15th of October.

Predicted landing area, as of the 15th of October.

Project Horus Launch 9th November 2014

On Sunday the 9th of November the AREG members assisted Project Horus and Launchbox with a double balloon launch from Mt Barker.

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Filling 2kg Balloon with 5.5m^3 of Helium

These two Balloon launches contained nine High School science experiments along with an experimental satellite payload from the University of South Australia.  They also carried the usual Project Horus cutdown and telemetry payloads to ensure recovery.

Thankfully the first payload was recovered from near Harogate and was relatively intact, after a freefall from 33kms sans chute.

The second payload made a miraculous landing into a farmers field just outside of Palmer, thanks to Andy VK5AKH for sharing the footage.

More specific details about the flights, altitudes and flight paths can be found on the Project Horus website.

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Telemetry & Cutdown ready to go

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First Balloon Train ready for Launch !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A big thanks has to go to our volunteer ground crew Gary VK5FGRY, Dennis VK5FDEN and his wife Irene, for cooking us a brilliant breakfast.  They also put up and took down the Marquee and made sure the oval was nice and clean while we’d all taken off to go and chase the Balloons…  Gary also made sure we had plenty of photos of the event, so it stands to reason why we’ve no photo of him to put on the blog (*grin*).

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Breakfast of Legends !

I’m confident that everyone enjoyed the day and can’t wait for the next adventure in the coming months !

73 Matt, VK5ZM