Weather Balloon Launch: Launch Day!!
Post by Natasha Wilkerson
March 30, 2015
The day finally arrived for our big launch! The students were excited and nervous to launch the balloon with hopes that all the preparations had paid off.
The night before the launch, I filed a NOTAM (Notice to Airman) using the instructions provided in the handbook. When I was transferred to the appropriate air traffic control, it was an interesting conversation. He had never filed one for a HAB before, and he was not sure it was legal. However, their job is just to file the notice, and he informed me that I will be getting a call from Washington DC if anything looked suspicious. (I never got a call.)
On launch day, at 8:30 AM, after delicious breakfast tacos, the students and the high school film crew, drove to the launch site. We had a welcome party waiting at the park including teachers, school staff, media, and a local celebrity! Bill Taylor, weatherman of KENS5, brought his daughter to witness the launch and cheer us on. He even documented the event on his Facebook page, which garnered almost 20,000 views!
The Launch
Launch Date: Saturday, February 7th, 2015
Launch Location: Medina River Natural Area south of San Antonio, Texas
Launch Time: Noon
Media Coverage: San Antonio Express-News, mySA, KENS5
Social Media Coverage: Twitter
Special Guest: Bill Taylor (local weatherman)
Mission Control carefully followed the pre-launch check-list to prepare the payload and hardware. Mission Specialist prepped the flower experiment. Meteorology team checked the weather conditions and determined optimal launching area. Recovery team prepped the GPS tracker and software. With clear skies and low wind speeds, we were ready to deploy the balloon! The nerve-racking part proved to be the filling of the balloon and then tying to the payload as I kept fearing the balloon would just blow out of my hands! We also had a hard time getting an accurate reading on the spring scale to determine lift so we had to guess the amount. But, everything ended in success and was an exhilarating experience for all!
Here are some pictures and videos from launch day:
Preparing the balloon for inflation
Inflating the balloon. I was so nervous it would fly away!
Weather balloon team!
Click here to read our other blog post on launching a weather balloon or watch the video below that takes you on a deep dive into the amazing project!
Planning to launch your own weather balloon? Tackle the ultimate STEM project with our all-inclusive classroom guide to launching a weather balloon PLUS links to a shared Google Drive folder with TONS of extra resources! Based on three years of successful weather balloon experience with over 300 middle school students, this guide is everything you need to design a payload, select an experiment, launch, and recover a weather balloon from a 100,000-foot journey to the edge of space!
