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The balloon experiment was planned for launch at 11AM Mountain Time (10AM Pacific) from Flagler, Colorado. Though the team didn't arrive for setup until after that time.
The map on the right works by having Google Maps display a GeoRSS XML listing of our data. You can see the raw XML data too. It was a quick method to put together a map display within a few hours. Google caches the file for some minutes each time so this display wasn't always up to the latest minute. But it was close. We could see the up-to-the-second data arriving on our server. For up-to-the-second feed in web browsers, we also used aprs.fi.
Callsigns we were tracking:
Volunteers providing remote support for the search included:
11:15 MT: It's running behind schedule. The in-the-field team has driven outside of range of APRS "IGate" digital repeaters that forward position reports to the Internet.
11:30 MT: The team has informed us they're at the launch site in Flagler, CO.
12:10 MT: The team says launch is expected in 40 minutes.
12:55 MT: We've been informed there's a minor delay but everything is OK. The launch is happening soon.
13:10 MT: Balloon filling has begun.
13:25 MT: The balloon has launched!
13:30 MT: We're still waiting for the first data to reach an IGate digipeater so that we can see it on the Internet. When it shows up, all the Internet sites will show it at the same time.
13:40 MT: Still waiting to see the first data propagate to the Internet.
13:42 MT: Got the first packet: 8677' 4mi ESE of Flagler.
13:49 MT: Second packet shows a descent to 7410', at 3 miles SSE of Siebert, CO.
14:15 MT: No further packets have been received. We're presuming it was on descent at the second packet. We have relayed the info to the team in the field.
14:20 MT: The TEMPO3 team is currently guessing there must have been a leak in the balloon.
15:25 MT: The TEMPO3 team has gotten permission from a farmer to enter his field to retrieve the balloon. Eric Knight KB1EHE says Stratofox's help in analyzing the data, even from California, led them straight to it. (In this case "the data" was only two position reports.)
15:50 MT: We're shutting down the APRS data recording so the map shown here is not going to change any more. (Otherwise it would have shown everyone driving back to Denver.)
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TEMPO3 balloon inflation
(photo by Eric Knight KB1EHE) |
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TEMPO3 balloon launch
(photo by Eric Knight KB1EHE) |
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:32:23 -0700
From: Ian Kluft
To: Stratofox Tracking Team, Stratofox Amateur Aerospace Talk list, Direxant discussion
Subject: TEMPO3 balloon recoveredIt was a short flight, about 7-8 miles. Eric Knight KB1EHE tells me that the electronics all worked but the balloon failed - they haven't determined much more detail on the failure mode yet.
The balloon only barely got up high enough to get 2 packets through to the Internet, via digipeaters in the Rockies west of Denver and Colorado Springs. The key hint that it gave us was that it was already descending at the second packet. With those 2 packets, the Stratofox crew in Santa Clara (Rafael KC6LBJ, Craig N6YXK and I) were able to estimate a landing zone 5 miles south of Seibert CO. That got them within half a mile of it where they were able to receive APRS packets from the balloon with its landing site coordinates. With permission from the farmer, they went in the field and got it.
All the electronics were recovered intact. This will be tried again in a couple months.
Though there's room for improvement in the software I wrote, we've also got a good start on a nifty new web tracking map application. I only started this yesterday evening so some of the decisions on it were by what could be done in a few hours. It got some enhancements and fixes during the day during support of the TEMPO3 flight.
http://www.stratofox.org/events/tempo3-20090926.htmlThanks to Layer42 Networks (and Steve Rubin AE6CH) for use of the conference room today.
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Ian Kluft KO6YQ (left each photo) and Craig Anderson N6YXK
at Layer42 Networks in Santa Clara
(photos by Rafael Skodlar KC6LBJ) | |