MCC Launch 4/27/19

For our 73rd flight from the NASA Nebraska High Altitude Ballooning program, we launched from the South Omaha Campus of Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, NE as a part of the General Physics II class.

Our main tracking equipment was sent back to the company for a firmware update at the end of last year. We received the updated package prior to the flight so we could bench test some new sensors.

Upgraded SatCom from Stratostar

One of the new sensors we were testing for a team’s experiment was a UV sensor. While inside, it was too dark to read, but with a high-powered UV flashlight, we could almost peg the maximum of 5 volts. See Input 6 on the iPad app for Voltage readings. Multiply by 10 to get UV index for this sensor.

  • 0.00 Volts
  • 4.25 Volts

The night before the flight brought some rain, but by the time we set up, the weather was very nice with little wind.

Putting the tracking information in everyone’s phones.

Michael gives the students a very brief physics lecture.

  • What goes up.
  • Must come down.
Gabe holding the UV sensor up in the sunlight to test like Baby Simba in the Lion King.
Filling the balloon
  • Countdown to liftoff
  • There it goes.
The landing prediction was east about 88 miles, but it actually landed 71 miles away.
Lake Manawa and Missouri River
About 90,000 ft.
90,000 ft. White dot on right is the Moon.
Balloon Burst at almost 91,000 ft.

The Stratostar Mission Control stopped transmitting over 30,000 ft., the secondary tracker through APRS worked throughout the flight and the tertiary tracker SPOT GPS also worked.

The payloads landed in a wind farm on near Bridgewater, Iowa. It was a fairly easy recovery.

  • Payloads in field
  • Examining the payloads
We lost one Go Pro 3+ camera from the neck of the balloon.
The plastic mount broke in two places.

The data file onboard the SatCom was complete through the flight and every team was able to get data to answer their research questions either through the digital data or the two additional Go Pro 3+ cameras that were on the pods. We look forward to the students presenting their results at a poster presentation at the spring MCC Showcase.