It took us a while to get 99A off the ground. Five launch dates were postponed owing to difficulties with weather - too windy, too cloudy, too much snow/ice on the roads, etc. Finally on the 6th we got a fairly decent day.
This launch was planned to be a "Duel Launch" between HABITAT and KNSP, however, HABITAT had to cancel at the last minute. The KNSP crew decided to continue with their portion of the launch. The morning's flight preparation went off normally and the balloon was launched at 0814 CST into an easterly wind of 5-8 mph. Fortunately the mid-to-high overcast did not prevent a launch - guidance from the FAA said the KNSP flights did not have to abide by the "<50% cloud coverage rule" because of its light configuration.
Initially, the balloon tracked westward toward Fort Riley, but turned back to the east before crossing into the reservation. The chase crews proceeded eastward on I-70 and made their first stop just east of Topeka on the Kansas Turnpike.
Watching the telemetry, it was apparent that the balloon was rising much faster than the expected 700 feet per minute. In fact, for the first 20 minutes or so the balloon was rising at nearly 1300 fpm. This meant the balloon would fall quite short of the expected landing site several miles east of Independence. At about 65,000 ft the balloon began a broad turn to the south and southwest, which was expected but not until the balloon was in the KCMO vicinty.
The chase team went a little farther east to the north side of Lawrence to await the balloon burst. During this wait, there were a number of GPS upsets causing a loss of position and altitude data. Fortunately, the GPS came back on line a couple of minutes before the burst at 114,648.4 ft at 1019 CDT. This altitude appears to be a record for a GPS-verified amateur balloon launch. The SSTV on board also happened to catch the burst, creating a spectacular picture that was broadcast at least as far as Omaha, about 170 miles away. There was much celebrating and high-fiving among the chase crew when it was apparent the record was indeed broken.
Now that the balloon was descending, the question became "where would it land?" At first it was thought the landing would be southeast of Lawrence, but as the chase team went into Lawrence to get in position, it was apparent the balloon wouldn't get that far. There were a tense few minutes as the balloon approached Lake Clinton from the southwest, but the low-level winds turned the balloon west before it got over the water. The chase team was still on US59 in Lawrence when the last airborne packet was received about four miles west of the west end of the lake. The landing took place at about 1103 CST.
As we drove towards the west end of Lake Clinton, it was apparent that it may not be easy to get to the landing site. The most direct route was on a severely rutted gravel road, so we went around to approach the site from the north. Street Atlas USA showed a half-mile of road that would take us within yards of the site, but that particular road was overgrown with weeds and saplings. Dan KE4SLC took an easier route through a field and arrived first at the landing site. Most of the crew walked the last 1000 yards and found the capsule fairly intact and undamaged.
One casualty of the descent was the SSTV dipole antenna. It appeared to have been twisted off right at the coax junction with the antenna itself, which explained the lack of SSTV signals after burst. Another nagging problem was the loss of GPS data during the ascent. Current hypotheses center around desense from the SSTV transmitter or intermittent power/connect problems with the GPS unit. The downward-looking 35mm camera jammed with the film unrewound and was exposed when the back was opened after the flight.
After recovery, the chase team went to the Perkins in Lawrence to await the development of the still photos and to do a quick review of the data and SSTV pictures. The still photos showed an impressive view of the horizon and the relatively cloudy skies.
99B was yet another episode of "Lost in (near) Space". I was unable to chase due to illness, so the data and chase accounts are from the KNSP listserver.
The launch went off normally at 0729 CST (1329 UTC). Around 31,000 ft, the capsule's GPS unit lost lock, then the IHU reverted to pre-flight mode. As of this writing, it is suspected that the battery voltage dropped too low. The chase teams found the glider, minus tail section, in Wolf Creek Lake (actually, the nuclear power plant crew found it shortly before the chase team's arrival there). The teams searched for a while in the Burlington/Iola area to no avail.
Based on the Sunday morning winds from Topeka and
the observed ascent rate up to 31 kft, I reran WBALTRAK and
arrived at the predicted touchdown shown in the graphic below
(prediction track shown in green and black diamonds, actual track
as a black line). Armed with this, Don KA0JLF, Bill N3KKM, and
Susan N3RAL returned to the area Monday afternoon to see if they
could locate the capsule. As they were criss-crossing the area to
the south of KS 57 east of LeRoy, a farmer flagged down Bill and
asked if he was looking for radio equipment.
The farmer's son had found the capsule the previous day, probably not long after landing. They had seen the chase teams cruising the area on Sunday, but were too busy with chores to flag anyone down. The recovery team took possession of the capsule and returned it to Lloyd on Tuesday.
The amazing part was the predicted landing was about 0.8 miles from the actual landing. Given that we didn't know the burst altitude with any certainty and that the balloon was already 4 miles off the forecast track by 31,000 ft, I would have thought we'd be lucky to nail down the landing area any closer than 8-10 miles. I think this was a case of luck over skill, but certainly without Rick's excellent WBALTRAK program, it would have been even tougher to find the capsule.
We had several difficulties with the launch of 99C, though the flight itself turned out well.
The first launch attempt on the 11th was during conditions that were too windy - gusts into the 20-25 mph range were recorded at launch time. As we were moving the balloons out of the building, a gust of wind knocked the balloon into the door latch and tore a hole about the size of a quarter in the balloon. The leak was relatively slow since the pressure inside the balloon is not that much higher than outside, but nonetheless meant it wasn't worth launching the capsules. We removed the capsules from the load line and practiced the new launch technique using string winders to "winch" the balloon out before release.
Dawn on the 18th revealed nearly perfect launch conditions. Skies were clear and winds were out of the south at 3-5 mph. During the preflight checkout, however, one of the battery packs had two bad cells in it. So Lloyd returned to Manhattan to get more cells and materials to make a new battery pack.
The new pack worked fine, but because there was some
question about the battery drain with a new telemetry package on
the capsule, Lloyd decided to remove it before the flight.
Everything on the capsules looked good at that point, so the
launch team started filling the balloon with helium. At about 6.5
lbs of lift, the helium tank ran dry - it appears it was less
than half full to start with. Our choices were not good at this
point - the welding supply store was closed, as was the Physics
department at KSU. The balloon may not do well if we let the
helium out and tried to pack it up for next weekend. So Lloyd
made another trip back to Manhattan and was able to get into the
building at KSU and get a full tank of helium. With that, we
finished filling the balloon and launched at 1033 CDT -
fortunately the winds remained quiet for our delayed launch.
The chase teams headed for Topeka and then proceeded south on US75. GPS continued to function flawlessly, but the backup beacon became inaudible above 8000 ft. We stopped about a mile north of Lyndon to wait for the balloon burst. Lloyd was able to see the balloon in his camcorder, but unfortunately the balloon moved out of the frame prior to burst. The burst occurred at 1223 CDT at 86,542 ft (26,378 m).
The teams took to the road again, heading south on US75 and turning east near the Wolf Creek nuclear power plant. Bill N3KKM and his wife were heard on the chase frequency coming in from the north and east. All converged on a farm field about 9 miles WSW of Garnett, KS and many saw the balloon touch down at 1319 CDT. The balloon was about a 1/4-mile from the nearest roads, making for a long slog though a muddy field to recover the capsules.
After recovering the capsules and some shoe clean-up, everyone
headed for the Perkins in Lawrence for a late lunch and to wait
on the pictures to be developed. Both the vertical and horizontal
cameras functioned properly, however the vertical camera did not
capture the glider's release as planned.
This was one of the more successful flights to date in terms of launch and data recovery. The crews arrived at about 0600 and launch prep went smoothly. We actually got an early launch this time, releasing the balloon at 0640 CDT. The only hang-up (literally) was when the strings were released to launch the balloon, one of them caught in the ring attached to the balloon's neck. As we wound the balloon back down to free it, it became unstuck and took off. The payload was jerked a bit as the load line slack went out, but since it was light we didn't have any breakage.
The chase crew head to Topeka, then south on US 75. Since the balloon was initally forecast to land east of Melvern Lake, the teams headed for a gas station north of Lyndon on 75. However, the balloon was rising faster than expected and therefore wouldn't go as far. We decided to wait near Lyndon anyway for the burst since we were already set up.
Burst came early, however. We had expected around 120,000 ft, but the 3000-gram balloon gave up at 105,942 ft. After burst, we proceeded west and north to Osage City and Burlingame, then west again toward Harveyville. We were about a half-mile away from the balloon again when it landed in a cow pasture about two miles northeast of the town. The balloon missed a small pond by about 10 yards.
Data was excellent through the flight. No cameras were
attached, but a payload of exposed adhesive pads was flown for
the Marshall Space Flight Center in an attempt to catch meteoric
dust from a meteor shower three days prior to the flight.
No results on this yet.
Flight 99E - 20
June 99 (Kansas Cosmosphere in
Hutchinson KS)
We delayed 24 hours to the 20th in the hope of getting clearer skies and lighter winds. The winds were somewhat lighter Sunday morning, but a very extensive stratus deck still covered most of south-central Kansas. A light mist fell off and on during the launch preparation, but not enough to deter us.
The garage area we planned to use had a door of only 8 feet or so in height, which would be the approximate height of the balloon when inflated. Since the winds were light, we decided to fill the balloon outside. Filling and capsule prep were nominal. We were ready to go at the scheduled launch time of 0800 CDT, but held on a few minutes in the hope of having students from the Young Astronauts program to witness the launch. We held on about 15 minutes but since the winds were beginning to pick up, we decided to launch without waiting for them. We had a problem again with using the lanyard release method where one caught on the ring attached to the balloon's neck. As we wound the balloon back towards the ground, the lanyard suddenly released. Launch was at 0814 CDT.
The winds between the surface and
40,000 ft were very light. Indeed, the balloon had moved
less than 7 miles from the launch site in the first 45
minutes! We moved to a truck stop near KS 61 and US 50
south of town, then on to Burrton. We had expected the
balloon to land east of Mt Hope, so we waited in Burrton for the
burst. The balloon backtracked much farther west than
expected due to the strong easterly winds between 70,000 ft and
100,000 ft. The burst occurred at 1043 CDT near Partridge
at an altitude of 109,211 ft.
The chase teams headed towards Partridge in the hope of being
right under the balloon as it landed. With the very light
low-level winds, we thought we had a real chance to be there at
the landing. We arrived within a mile of the balloon's
position several minutes before landing, but winds out of the
east at 20 mph at 2000 ft AGL pushed the balloon about a
half-mile west at the last minute. Landing was at 1135 CDT
in a wheat field about 1/4 mile from the highway. We
returned to Hutchinson to get the pictures developed and to get
some lunch. The photos taken with the regular color film
showed interesting details in the cloud cover, but no view of the
ground as it remained cloudy for the entire flight.
Next Flight - in Idaho as
the Idaho Near Space Project
Sorry, folks, the last flight of the Kansas Near Space Project was on the 10th of July from the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS. I'll have a summary for 99F posted here soon, as well as some photos from previous flights.
Page author: Mark Conner (N9XTN)
Background music: "Learning to Fly" by Pink Floyd
