HABL

Introduction

This week we launched our final balloon with the goal of putting it high into the atmosphere. Our HABL (High Altitude Balloon Launch) should reach an altitude of at least 60,000 feet in the atmosphere. This would put the balloon somewhere in the stratosphere. Once it reaches its maximum height, the gas inside the balloon will pop and unleash the parachute, bringing it back safely to earth. We are going to attach a camera to the balloon and hopefully get some good images of the launch and flight.

Methodology

Earlier in the year we worked on making a balloon rig while the weather kept us indoors. Reference that blog post for more instruction on the construction portions. I worked on the measurement of weights (which were unnecessary in the end) but my fellow classmates worked on the rig itself. Their blogs are available at:

http://people.uwec.edu/hupyjp/webdocs/geog336_Reports_spr13.htm

We finally got a good day on Friday April 26^th  with temps in the mid-upper 60s and winds at a minimum. Since this wasn’t the original class time only some of the students were able to attend. We carted the helium down from the chem department to the outdoor shed and began to fill the balloon. We determined when the balloon was full and then began to attach the rig to the balloon

The rig was primarily comprised of a Styrofoam box filled with insulation and hot handz hand warmers. The insulation and hand warmers were included in order to keep the camera warm enough to function. It gets quite cold as you get higher up in the atmosphere and the camera would have broken otherwise. Also included was a camera (obviously), a gps tracking device and a flash beacon.

We launched the balloon and it immediately took off upwards. After it cleared a crane on campus we knew the balloon wouldn’t encounter any more structures until it would land again.

A few hours later the gps tracking device notified us that the balloon had landed in nearby Marshfield (only 72) miles away. Our professor went to the location and climbed a tree to find the parachute and retrieved it successfully.

Results/Discussion

Here is a video of the launch

http://desi.uwec.edu/Geography/Hupyjp/Weather_Balloon_1024.asx

How neat is that?

There is another video floating around, however is too large to put here.  Instead, here are some still frames that the video produced.

Figure 1: Campus from the aerial balloon. Approx height of 1500ft

Figure 2: Aerial photo of the river from a much higher altitude

Figure 3: Here is a good photo where you can see the curvature of the earth. Pretty neat huh? Shows just how high our balloon was.

Overall, this was an important exercise in aerial mapping. We learned a lot by trial and error so far in this class and this exercise was on par with that. A lot of the footage captured by the camera was pretty shaky and unusable for mapping purposes. If we were to do the exercise again I think we could use multiple cameras and have a camera focused on the balloon itself, the ground, and then incorporate IR or other types of cameras. This would give a wide spectrum of images which would provide more useful in a mapping setting.