Project HALON (High Altitude Learning Over Nebraska) involved engineering undergraduate students from the University of Nebraska at Omaha and student groups from several high schools in the area and we helped facilitate the balloon flight.

Mission control was set up at UNO in PKI 335. They have a wall of displays and everyone had their jobs and checklists to keep things moving smoothly.

They had a Google Hangout broadcast during the set up and entire flight. If you are so inclined, you can watch the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDWkJLQkJWM

The launch itself is around 2:15:00.

We set up outside the PKI building and the weather was nice with very little wind.

With a countdown from mission control, we launched at 10:10 am.

One interesting experiment used a web camera and a modem to see how long we could maintain a link and get live images on the computer. It lasted a lot longer than we predicted.

We got one hit on the APRS from the car before the launch and then it did not work again the entire flight. We suspect that there is an issue with the antenna or its connections.

The balloon burst around 67,000 ft. so it ended up landing about 20 miles northeast of the launch site near Honey Creek, IA. The payload recovery specialists had to cross a stream at the bottom of a relatively deep gorge.

Congratulations to the HALON teams on a well-executed mission!