| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Gopher Space 2015

Page history last edited by Gabe Kraljevic 6 years, 11 months ago

Back to Gopher Space Main Page

 

Gopher Space 2015 

Successful launch and recovery of Gopher Space 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you to the administration and staff of Garden City C

ollegiate, in particular Mr. Steve Medwick, Principal, for allowing us to start up this project and offering his support.  

 


Please check out our wonderful

Sponsors

 

 

Check out all our unedited videos 

or the

GCtech YouTube Channel

 

 

Team Gopher Space at launch...

 

...and at recovery!


 

 

On Friday, April 24, 2015 - Garden City Collegiate joined 5 other Winnipeg high schools:  Shaftesbury, Fort Richmond, St. James, Maples and Miles MacDonnell to launch high-altitude weather balloons with small payloads into near space, approximately 32000 metres (105000 feet) above the Manitoba prairie.  Under the expert tutelage of the teachers at Shaftesbury, Rob Striemer and Adrian Deakin, and the students in their Project SOAR-1, the teams spent the last few months designing and testing their launch vehicles containing APRS location transmitters, cameras and various science experiments in accordance with the rules of the Global Balloon Challenge 2015.  

 

Based on flight predictions from http://predict.habhub.org/ , Morden, Manitoba was the ideal place to launch our balloons with landings expected a few kilometres northwest of Morris, Manitoba.  With the kind permission of Marianne Fenn, Principal of Morden Collegiate and the wonderful cooperation of her staff and students, we set up 5 launch stations on their school grounds.   

 

 

 

Thank you,

Morden Collegiate!

(Our launch site host)

 

 

 

 Gophernaut

 

 Garden City Collegiate's first

 space traveller

 

 

 

Gophernaut ready for launch!

 

 

 

 

And the fun was just beginning...

 

The buffeting winds, a runaway balloon, a nearly mission-ending launch crash couldn't stop the successful release of 5 balloons in a "constellation" at approximately 11:30 am.  

 

An almost complete failure of radio tracking on all but one HAB nearly spelled disaster for any chance of recovery - but the Maples Collegiate APRS was working and, based on their tracks, we began the search for the payloads.

 

By the end of the day, 4 out of 5 of the teams recovered their payloads*.  

 

This is the story of one of those teams:  

 

 

* - 5th payload was found, May 20, 2015!

 

 

 

Gophernaut is happily waving to us from the blackness of near space.  But...this was a dangerous mission!  Did our hero make it?  Find out what happened... 

 

(click here to see full-sized image)

   

 

   

 

Picture Highlights

 

Payload and Flight Teams at work.

 

Payload - bottom tier

(radio, batteries and cameras 1 and 2)
   

 


   

Payload Ready and Launch (almost!)

   

 

The Morden Launch Site:  Aerial view

(Courtesy of Shaftesbury SHARP)

 

 

Good bye Morden (30 seconds after 'release')

(click here to see full-sized image)

 Just below the clouds (4 minutes into flight)

(click here to see full-sized image)

 

Through the clouds (5 minutes into flight)

 

 

 It's getting COLD up here! (-30C, 20 minutes into flight) 

 

 

Over the prairies

 

(click here to see full-sized image)

 

Balloon Burst - around 31000 m (102000 feet) - 90 minutes

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

Change in the size of the balloon:  

(from Left to Right) 

 At "Release";    60 minutes before burst;    30 minutes before burst;    2 minutes before burst

 

 

 Camera 3 (Mobius 2) was positioned upward to catch the burst.  Based on the time stamp on Camera 2 (Mobius 1) we know that the battery on Camera 3 died just two minutes from burst. 

 
 

 

Launch Day Stories

 

Near Disaster!

    

Our balloon almost didn't leave the ground!  A cord used to hold the balloon down until launch got caught in the tether that connected the balloon to the payload.  Only quick action by Mr. Carson saved the day when he snapped the end of the cord that was tied to a cinder block.  You'll hear the cheer as the balloon makes its escape...with the loooong orange launch cord trailing behind.

 

(Because of the length of these videos, it is probably best to Click on the link. On the next screen, Right Click on the Download button and select "Save link as..." to download the video)

 

Take off - Camera 2 (Mobius 1)

 

Take off - Camera 3 (Mobius 2) - Lower Res.mp4

 

Launch - as seen by Zoe.mp4

 


 

Near Disaster!  The Sequel


The launch cord was now dangling from our HAB.  What did this mean for our flight?  Will the parachute be tangled?  How did Gophernaut manage?

 

Houston...we have a problem - Video

(Right click and use Save link as...)

 


 

 

 

 

 

Gallery

Photos leading up to the big day

 

Mission Teams

Mission Control

Telemetry

Photography

Flight

Payload

Communications and Public Relations

Science, Computers, Data

 

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.