KD4STH is "Asimov", KD4STH-4 is "Sagan". Both were launched within minutes of each other around 0715 CDT on 16 May 1998. My tracking setup used APRSPlus/Street Atlas USA, a KPC-3, Radio Shack HTX-212, and a 5/8-wave mag-mount antenna. GPS data was captured from the capsules to within a few hundred vertical feet of landing (actual touchdowns were very close to last received GPS position). Both capsules were recovered without incident in open fields.
This was a reflight of 98A due to still camera failures. Asimov was launched around 0715 CDT on 6 June 1998, Sagan about 10 minutes later. Asimov reached an altitude of 90,557 feet (27,602 meters) and Sagan reached at least 98,445 feet (30,006 meters). Sagan stopped transmitting position reports at the 30,006-meter altitude.
Asimov landed in a residential area of Independence, MO and was recovered without incident. The capsule landed in a front yard and had missed several trees, power lines, etc., to land in one of the few open areas which was about 20ft in diameter. Had the capsule floated another two blocks downwind, it would have landed in a busy four-lane street. The residents had called the Fox (Ch. 4) affiliate and Lloyd was interviewed for a short news piece that aired that evening.
Sagan, on the other hand, was missing. No position reports had been received after 30,006m, which was the assumed burst altitude. It was hypothesized that the burst caused something to fail in the capsule that prevented transmission of positions. After recovering Asimov, the chase teams went to Bonner Springs KS to begin hunting the beacon. Three vehicles searched an area about 10 miles on a side to the NW of Bonner Springs, but only found home electronics noise on the same frequency as the beacon. After happening upon a small airport south of Leavenworth, we were lucky enough to find two pilots who agreed to take two members of the recovery team into the air to make a quick search - no joy. The teams then went to Leavenworth to get dinner, enjoy the still pictures taken from Asimov, and harass Lloyd about his successful reduction of the Kansas deer population by one that same morning.
On Sunday, Lloyd got a phone call from Fox4 saying a viewer had seen the news piece the night before and reported that Sagan had landed in their yard. Sagan did not have any contact information on it, so it was serendipitous that the Asimov's finders called Channel 4, that we decided to stick around for the interview, and that Sagan's finders happened to watch Fox's local news that evening.
To get the whole story, click here.
98C
was an attempt to catch sunrise from near space on video and still camera.
However, Murphy has a way of striking when all appears to be going well
at long last and we had an unintentional double flight.
The original launch date of 25 July was scrubbed due to a (correct) forecast of rain and clouds, so it was postponed to 8 August. The GPS unit on the Clarke capsule was acting up the night before the launch, so Lloyd hurriedly made software mods to Asimov to get that capsule ready to go with video and still cameras. The launch crew began arriving around 0300 CDT and Asimov was prepped and ready to go for an on-time 0420 CDT launch. As the balloon was released, however, the load line snapped at the attachment point. So 98C-1 went off at 0420 with only a flashing beacon attached and one heck of an ascent rate.
A second balloon was available, but there was a question of whether we could fill it with enough helium to do any good. The balloon was filled with what remained in the two cylinders, but only about 8.5 lbs of lift were available. This was insufficient to launch Asimov without stripping practically all of the cameras and other payload, so the decision was made to wait until a welding supply store opened that morning at about 0800 to get more helium and make a mid-morning flight instead. The crew adjourned to the Village Inn in Manhattan for breakfast and to review the 98B videotape.
The supply store opened a little early and we returned to the BLF for launch. The balloon was filled to the necessary lift capacity and we had a nominal launch at 0830 CDT. We returned the helium cylinder to the shop in Manhattan, then proceeded to Alta Vista to see where the balloon would go. By the time we got to Alta Vista, the balloon was just south of Dwight and easily visible to the naked eye. We then went to White City to watch for its southerly turn. Shortly after leaving White City for KS 149/US 56, telemetry indicated the balloon had burst at an altitude of 78,350 ft (23,889 meters) at 1009 CDT. Later review of the telemetry showed that the capsule descended almost 6000 meters in the first two minutes after burst, for an average speed during that time of 110 mph.
By the time we got to just south of KS 149/US 56, the capsule was descending below 7000 ft and again visible. The surface winds were southerly at the low levels, so we went back to US 56. Dan KE4SLC was the first in the landing area and saw the capsule land in a cow pasture just north of some (300 kV?) power lines at 1100 CDT, while I arrived just after landing. We saw some cows running through the pasture at a fair clip away from the balloon. We started off across the pasture and found the capsule intact among the thistles and cow patties (fortunately not on a fresh one of the latter). The capsule was in fine condition and we packed up for Junction City to get lunch and await the film development. Pictures and video were excellent.
Weather forced two consecutive delays for 98D's launch. Light winds, clear skies with a gibbous moon, and a temperature of about 50 made for nearly perfect launch conditions. Flight 98D with the Galileo capsules got off the ground at 0743 CDT without incident.
A unique feature of this launch was on-board slow-scan television (SSTV). This allows the transmission of still images over narrow-band FM channels. The mode used was Robot 36, which was one of two modes available on the Kenwood VC-H1 Visual Communicator. More commonly used modes, such as Scottie 1, would have given better pictures (and longer transmit times) but was not available with the Kenwood unit.
The surface winds took the capsule towards Manhattan, then turned to the east largely as forecast. The chase teams went north from the BLF to Manhattan, the east on US24 to the town of Wamego. The balloon was relatively slow at this stage (about 30 mph), so we waited in Wamego for a few minutes for it to catch up and were able to observe it with the naked eye as it passed above us between 25,000 and 30,000 ft. While we were observing the balloon, the APRS reported that the control unit received a GPGGA string from the on-board GPS unit that indicated it had lost GPS lock. This made the balloon briefly think it was in descent mode and probably released the glider at this point. However, the software checks for the other experiments waited to see if the GPS re-locked - it did, and the flight proceeded normally from there. On the 15th, Lloyd received a call that the glider was find a few miles NW of Wamego - location is noted on the map below.
We then drove on to Silver Lake and observed the balloon's travels some more. The discussion at this point centered on the best route to pursue the balloon - should we go up US 75 to near Mayetta, or further east to Kansas 4 and get in front of the balloon? Lloyd made the correct decision to proceed to near Valley Falls on Kansas 4. As we were stopping in Valley Falls, the capsule reported the balloon had burst at 0950 CDT as its path was crossing US75 a few miles south of Mayetta at an altitude of 88,817 ft (27,071.5 m). This made for an average ascent rate of about 685 fpm.
The chase teams waited in Valley Falls for a while, then proceeded north to Nortonville as the balloon descended lower in the atmosphere. By observing the surface winds and the balloon's path after launch, we expected a northward turn after the balloon got below 5000 ft or so. We backtracked about a mile on Kansas 4 and were in position to be in the last picture transmitted from the balloon. Dan KE4SLC took off down the gravel road to follow the capsule and was nearly able to catch it before impact at 1045 CDT. I was a few hundred yards behind him and snapped a couple of pictures as the capsule came to earth. The capsule came down in an open field about ten yards away from the road, making for the easiest recovery yet. Once again, the capsule narrowly missed some power lines upon landing.
The slow-scan pictures were captured on my Toshiba Pentium-100 laptop with 40 MB of RAM running W95SSTV in addition to APRSPlus and Street Atlas USA. Radio gear for the SSTV capture was a Yaesu FT-530 and a 1/4-wave mag mount. The only problems noticed was receiver desense whenever I transmitted on 144.39 (APRS) or 146.52 (voice). This shows up as horizontal bars or a completely trashed image. We're considering a move to 70cm voice for chase team coordination.
Murphy paid us a return visit for 98E, playing some new and unusual tricks on the KNSP group. First, he suckered several of us into driving to Manhattan early on Saturday the 24th, only to greet us with a light rain. He did give us fair warning, though, as NWS did forecast clouds and widely scattered light rain for the morning. However, the (nameless) meteorologist who offers his forecasts for flight planning chose to ignore the signs in a fit of launchitis.
So we all came back early Sunday morning for another try. Weather was perfect for launch this time, with no wind and clear skies. As we moved the capsules out of the building to get a GPS lock, we discovered that the capsule was not transmitting APRS data. This required unloading most of the styrofoam peanuts from the capsule to access the transmitter. It appeared that the +5kHz switch was turned on, causing the transmitter to be set to 144.395 MHz. With the crossband repeater transmitting, it was impossible to hear the signal due to desense unless right on frequency. Having corrected this problem, we launched about 0448L, or about 18 minutes after the planned launch time.
The team then proceeded to the Wal-Mart parking lot in Topeka. En route, we tested the crossband repeater and found the downlink signal became very weak even when only a few miles distant from the balloon. By the time we got to Topeka, we could not hear ourselves on the downlink. The balloon, however, was following the course predicted the night before, staying within a mile or two of the forecast course. Seeing this part of the mission was going well, we then headed toward Lawrence.
A few miles southeast of Topeka, the team stopped again to observe the balloon's ascent through 75,000 ft. As the balloon rose into sunlight, the color of the balloon turned orange, then a brilliant white as it entered full sunlight. The balloon was the brightest object in the sky at the time, far brighter than Venus would be and easily visible to the naked eye. In binoculars, the capsules could be seen hanging below the balloon itself. At 0701 CST and 90,833 ft (27,686 m) altitude, the balloon burst. The cloud of talc left behind by the explosion was just visible to the naked eye, and the package could be seen falling to earth through binoculars.
During the descent, the GPS reported the same altitude for about 6 minutes, even though the latitude/longitude continued to change. The reason for this is not entirely clear, because the GGA strings reported 5 satellites used for the fix and that the RMC fix was good. Another anomaly, from my point of view at least, was that my TNC was not decoding the data properly, even with an S9+ signal. At least two other users reported similar problems, and one suggested that the transmitter's deviation may be a little low, however, two other users had no such problems. Fortunately the data began to decode for me again under 20,000'.
We closed in on the balloon a few miles SSE of Eudora, KS. At one point, we spotted the balloon as it passed over our heads at about 7000 ft. We chased the balloon a couple of miles farther northeast, then we saw it descend behind a tree line into an open field about 300 yards south of the nearest road. While we were within sight of the landing area, it was too far away from the road to be able to catch the package as was done for 98D. Landing was at 0753 CST.
While the capsule was recovered intact, Murphy wasn't through with us. The camera had jammed and did not advance the film after the test pictures were taken on the ground. The video camera had apparently been reset to "standard" record mode instead of "extended" record, giving only 40 minutes of video instead of the expected 120 minutes. The video, however, clearly showed city lights as well as the lighted construction areas along I-70.
In the graphic above, the diamonds are a prediction of the balloon's track using a 12-hour forecast of the wind profile. This was the closest prediction to date, with a difference of only 3.1 miles in the landing zone. Up to 67,000 ft, the forecast is almost dead on - above this I had to use observed wind values from the night before rather than a prediction and this probably contributed to some of the error.
98F was nearly postponed before it could be started. Bill N3KKM, Dan KE4SLC, and I arrived at the BLF a bit before Lloyd did. We looked at the wind gauge and saw gusts to about 25 mph, thinking to ourselves, "not another wasted drive!". Lloyd arrived just after 4am and asked us "well, should we try it?" Since it wasn't our helium, we said sure, why not.
We filled the balloon and prepped the capsules. As we took the balloon outside for launch, the wind made the balloon very difficult to hold. We could see that the problem would be controlling the release of the balloon while preventing the capsules from striking the ground during the first few seconds of flight. Fortunately Dan came up with the idea of attaching a second load line to the balloon, then using it to control the balloon until the capsules were taken up by the original load line. This idea worked beautifully and the balloon was launched at 1119 UTC (0519 CST).
The chase team then proceeded to east on I-70 to Lawrence, then south to KS 10 and eastward to north of Olathe to await the balloon burst. The balloon followed us at a pretty good clip. Burst occured at 26405 m (86,630 ft) about 7 miles west of Olathe at 1343 UTC (0743 CST).
After burst, the chase team continued east on KS10/I-435 to US71, then south through Grandview. The team was joined by WA0JRJ and aided by WB0TUE who was following the chase from his QTH in Lee's Summit. The chase team was almost under the capsule when it encountered strong southerly winds below 10,000 ft. The team proceed north to pursue the capsule, and at least two vehicles encountered a dead-end road (gee, thanks DeLorme for not warning me about this!) in the quest to be first at the landing site. Lake Winnebago gave a brief scare to the capsule as it cruised over the water at less than 3000 ft AGL. Even at this low altitude, the capsule was carried NNE by winds of 65 mph.
The capsule landed about 100 yards NW of the intersection of MO 150 and MO 291. The chase team was not the first on the scene, but rather the Lee's Summit Police Dept., which was alerted to the capsule's landing by some concerned citizen. Landing occured about 1436 UTC (0836 CDT).
The ascent rate was only 600 fpm, despite our desire to overfill the balloon. However, this allowed a check against the prediction I made the night before assuming just such an ascent rate. The landing was about 11 miles WSW of the predicted landing site near Lone Jack, MO.
The capsule was recovered more or less intact - the 2m antennas took some abuse on landing, but otherwise the capsule was OK. SSTV transmissions during the flight suffered from what was later surmised to be a loose connection between the camera head and body. Even so, a few pictures of the sunrise were received OK. The still camera jammed but was able to take a few pictures. However, the video did capture sunrise at about 60,000 ft and was of excellent quality in general. At that altitude, some blue color was still evident in the sky despite the thin atmosphere, but the curvature of the earth was evident.
Page author: Mark Conner (N9XTN)
Background music: "Learning to Fly" by Pink Floyd
