Initially scheduled for Monday December 27th 2010, I met a lot of issues and had to report the launch of my first High Altitude Balloon called MSP-1 to Friday December 31st 2010.
I wish I had great news but the truth is the launch failed. I don’t have all the details yet as I need to analyze the little data I have but here is my understanding of what happened:
Lots of mistakes but lots of good lessons.
Bad Timing
I filed a NOTAM to the FAA for a launch at 11am PST near Davis, CA.
The launch site was 2 hour away from San Francisco. Once on-site we realized that the field I picked thanks to Google Map had a fence. We had to relocate quickly. We found another field that seemed appropriate.
To make a long story short, our 2 wheel drive truck got stuck in a fresh 10-inch deep mud. It took us 2 hours to get out of there. By the time, we got free and had found another spot, it was 12:30pm. We already were 1h30 late.
We started setting up the balloon and payload. The 1200g Kaymont balloon took about 45min to fill. I enabled the SPOT GPS Messenger and the accutracking software on the GPS Phone. I saw both signals from my Iphone and another smartphone. Once the balloon was almost ready, I closed the payload lid and added the camera module of top of it. We tapped the whole thing securely, attached it to the parachute and the latter to the balloon.
Checklists are made to avoid stupid mistakes
We were ready to launch at 2:37pm. It had taken 2 hours to set it up. With a minimum of 2h30 flight time and a sunset at 5pm, we were terribly late with no margin of error.
Because we were such in a hurry, I forgot to go through my preflight checklist.
We launched it as soon as it was ready. The lift had been correctly calculated, within a couple of seconds the balloon was 100ft high. The feeling of seeing your work flying up 15ft/s was absolutely awesome.
“We lost it”
I went back to check the tracking data and realized that both tracking systems had stopped emitting since 2pm-ish. Before we even launched it! This could only mean one thing, the camera module and/or the tape added prevented the devices to send any data.
Worse, in the hurry, I had forgotten to put my contact information on the box.
There was literally no way for us to track it and no easy solution for anyone who may found it to contact us. “We lost it” I announced only 5 minutes after the launch.
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes
I lost a SPOT-1 Messenger, a Motorola i-296, a Parallax circuit board with temperature sensor and data logger, a Canon SD880IS +4Gb SD Card and a GoPro HD Hero + 32Gb SD Card. I am immensely disappointed.
The positive note is that I learned a lot from this project.
-First and foremost, time and action steps are critical. You cannot compromise one for another. Everything has to be done on time and has to be checked. Going over my preflight checklist would have allowed me to identify all issues.
-The second and maybe the most important is to stop reading about everyone else’s projects and feedback but to experiment myself. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to understand how to build a joint between the helium tank regulator and the neck of the balloon. I should have just built it and tested it instead of thinking about it for so long.
From the top of my head:
-The launch requires at least 2 people. 3 would be better.
-The payload layout should be simple. In order to reduce the time of the launch sequence, the shroud lines should be ready to be attached to the parachute.
-Zip ties are your best friend
-The payload experiments and devices should be tested in preflight conditions: ie in a moving, closed and tapped styrofoam box. I suspect my heavy duty scotch tape to contain aluminium blocking signal transmissions.
-If your lift is correct, a truck bed is good enough to launch the balloon. All you need is a clear 75-yard area around you (no fence, no phone poles or electrical lines)
-To make sure the lift is correct, do not use a hanging scale because it tends to shutdown during the inflation and then re-calibrates itself. Use a jug of water with the appropriate weight. When the lift equals the opposite force, the balloon is in equilibrium, you are good to go.
-People are interested and usually friendly about the launch, it’s okay to be near houses.
Next Steps
I will definitely try again. I need to save some money and will launch a simplified version in a couple of months.
Blue skies,
Marc