Sputnik Lite: Teaching Science With Balloons

In addition to building satellites, Nick and students from CAPE are actively seeking future satellite builders and engineers even in elementary schools.  One method of reaching these students and getting them involved in science is through the Sputnik Lite balloon launch.  A small radio transmitter is attached to a helium filled party balloons and released.  The transmitter then sends down pulses of RF to relay temperature information to a groundstation.  Students then decode the temperature information to observe the changes in temperature over altitude.

Temperature vs. Altitude of a Balloon

Nick’s presentation and spreadsheet are available here:

• balloon-sputnik-light-09-06-02.pptx
  
• balloon-09-06-03-0623.xls

Recently CAPE members were interviewed by students studying broadcasting, in front of a camera, and had their segment air on the Acadiana Open Channel. Video below:

Here are a few videos from the balloon launch. The first two are from the launch and the second two are from just before recovery.

Oh, did I mention we have a ULCape Youtube Channel? Stay tuned for more video and pictures from the launch.

After weeks of long and hard work by Balloon 2, and support from the CAPE team, and many stressful hours of late night work, Balloon 2, Crawsat I, was launched today, January 31st, 2009, from Lake Charles. Launch Photos Below:

The Balloon was released at approximately 8:34 AM, with a course towards Donaldsonville, Louisiana. Below is the course of the final descent, and landing into the Mississippi River (of all places in the area!), after the cut down mechanism was initiated.

After an hour of scanning the river attempting a sighting, we finally got a visual near Sunshine Bridge (great name! ), and were able to get the payload back after recieving help from small boat near by. Photos of Recovery below:

The Balloon was recovered at approximately 12:35PM. We will be posting more photos of the launch, and videos of the launch and recovery in the coming days, so be on the look out for more posts from myself and other people with videos and photos.

Once again, I’d like to thank all the members of the Launch, Tracking, and Recovery teams, and those that took time out to track the Balloon alongside us from their respective homes and offices, your support was invaluable in making this operation all the more successful. Also special thanks to our friends Jim and Damon from LSU, who helped us get a barge to go to the center of the river to recover our payload package, and the National Weather Service, and Jimmy Nunn, the Hydrometeorological Technician, who helped set up the balloon for launch.

Also one more thank you is in order, for the Balloon 2 team as a whole, along with the other members of CAPE involved in the work leading up to today. Without your hard work, and dedication, late at night and all weekend, over the last month, we would never have had such a successful mission!

P.S: Balloon 3, now it’s our turn to get to work!

Well yesterday, January 16th, 2009, we tested the parachute for Balloon 2. Our first test used a can of dried up cement. Photos Below:

On top of the building before throwing out the parachute.

The Parachute has been deployed…

and lands safely!

After the initial test,  our general consensus was the parachute did not have a heavy enough package, and didn’t deploy quick enough. So to remedy this,  we took a coke can, and filled it with gravel and repeated the test again.

Photos Below:

Chris gets ready for the second trial.

and down it comes, more efficently, and deploys quicker.