+Tanner Lovelace posted yesterday that http://www.ncnearspace.org/ planned a high altitude balloon launch around noon today from Maker Faire NC. I brought the kids, and we had fun first watching the launch, then wandering around the Faire for hours, and meeting a few friends like +Scott Leslie and +Kevin Otte.

Sorry for the large album. Some of the pictures are, I suppose, of the “you had to be there” variety. For example, the space shuttle toy was sent up as a prize for the closest guess at the landing spot.

I haven’t heard whether they recovered the payload (yet). According to telemetry data, it reached nearly 90,000 feet, and by the time it reached 600 feet above ground level it was descending at only about 15 feet per second. Fingers crossed… 17q04s27kw2sy.jpg

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Michael K Johnson June 16, 2012 23:36

I hear that the payload was recovered.

Tanner Lovelace June 16, 2012 23:50

Yep, I had to walk through a fairly dense thicket of forest, brambles and occasional bamboo but I managed to find the capsule in good shape.  Unfortunately, on the way out the crossbar the balloon was connected too caught and broke off.  I managed to grab it and bring it back, but halfway out the bottle of liquid did the same and I didn’t notice it! :-(  I do have a picture of it, though.

Sadly I was so excited to find the capsule (on the ground, thanks to the 10 foot rope attached to the parachute) that I forgot to take a picture of it’s landing place.  I didn’t get one until about 5 minutes after I had grabbed it. 

The capsule was 0.12 miles from the road behind a church in a forest.  It took about 15-20 minutes to make it through the forest to the landing site (that’s how thick it was!) and a little bit longer to make it out.  I got really lucky to know where it was.  Both igated APRS and SPOT didn’t post a final coordinate location.  However, when I drove to the last reported APRS position my radio heard the capsule transmitting which gave me the final resting coordinates!  

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