We just received more photos of the CrawSat III launch from Mrs. Beth Guillet from the College of Engineering office, along with a new launch video.

Link to New Gallery: http://gallery.ulcape.org/v/CrawSat+3/LaunchDayFeb5th2011/Launch+Team/Engineering/

Also here is a second video of the Launch:

Thanks to Mrs. Beth!

Greetings All,

Well the end has finally come for CrawSat III. This past weekend, on Saturday, February 5th, 2011 the CrawSat III High Altitude Weather Balloon Project was successfully launched out of Lake Charles, Louisiana around 12:20 PM, and landed in the Homochitto National Forest in the state of Mississippi nearly three hours later, where it was found stuck in a tree. Through help from a local citizen of the area, the Recovery Teams were able to successfully retrieve the package with very little damage.

- Predicted Flight Path

- Launch Team Preparing to release Balloon

- Launch Team Preparing to release Balloon

- Launch Video

- Photo from bottom camera during flight

- Photo from side camera during flight

- Balloon Package stuck in tree

- Recovery Team and Local Mississippian who helped retrieve package from the tree with package

Also a link to the full Launch Day Gallery may be found here:
http://gallery.ulcape.org/v/CrawSat+3/LaunchDayFeb5th2011/

We would just like to take this moment to thank the following people for their help in making this happen:
CrawSat III development team: Casey Boudreaux, Ethan Olivier, Rizwan Merchant, Dustin Muse, Chase Savoy, Louis Courville

Launch Team: Chase Savoy, Casey Boudreaux, Ethan Olivier, Matthew Dupuis

Ground Station Team: Rizwan Merchant, Nick Pugh, Trey Oliver

Recovery Team 1: Jeremy Guillory, Alex Wehmann, Eric Rohner

Recovery Team 2: Lorenzo Evans, Matthew Triche

Recovery Team 3: Patrick Dellinger, Adam Hebert, Ricky Schexnayder

The locals of Mississippi for helping recover the package

Plane Team: Dustin Muse, Louis Courville

Pilot for Plane: Les Henderson

Photographers: Ashley Isabelle Yelveton, Beth Guillet

The Lake Charles National Weather Station and their Staff

NP Moss Middle Schools Students for making the PearlSats

Northside Highschool for their payload add on to the CrawSat III

The ULL Chemistry Department and Dr. August Gallo for their donation of Liquid Nitrogen for the Cold Test

The ULL Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering Department for providing us lab space and the chance to work on this project

and a very special thanks to Nick Pugh for many a long night of helping, mentoring, teaching us, and pushing us beyond our expectations to reach for the skies and fly.

Sincerely,
Rizwan Merchant
Flight Director
CrawSat III

Greetings Everyone,

I just got off the phone with the Lake Charles Weather Station, and they are saying our winds are looking great for a launch tomorrow. As are the conditions for our plane to join in the recovery efforts out of New Iberia. Our team is planning to meet in the CAPE Lab tomorrow morning between 5:30 am and 6:00 am to begin preparing our vehicles for the day. Around 6:30 am we will be calling the Lake Charles Weather Station for a final update on the weather conditions, and using their data and our own predictions based off the winds make a final decision to fly or not tomorrow. Assuming we can fly tomorrow, Our Lake Charles Team will be leaving the lab at 7:00 am, and should be ready to release the balloon by 8:20 – 8:30 am. We will be sending out recovery teams around 8:00 am. Currently we are predicting a landing in Moureaville, LA. This is variable to change though.

Map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=31.1327798358211,-91.8187835927651&spn=1,1&hl=en

Anyone interested in joining us for the day in the lab are more then welcome to join us. I will be sending out another email in the morning once we’ve determined the final decision to fly.

Thanks!

Sincerely,
Rizwan Merchant
Flight Director, CrawSat III

Well after a month of preparations, and dealing with new issues such as GroundStation failures, and other issues, the CrawSat III Team is prepared to relaunch February 5th, 2011.

- Team putting final touches on rigging the parachute to the package.

- Close up of box.

Hopefully all goes well this time! Until next update!

First of all I just want to thank everyone who came out this morning to help launch the Weather Balloon. I know today didn’t exactly go as planned or at all as planned actually. But you guys were great. Special round of thanks for Chase and Ethan for going to incredible lengths to recover the package.

To those who were not present, or missed what actually happened, here is a brief synopsis I got from the launch team when they returned to the lab:

It would appear, the weight of the package, and ping pong balls was too great for the weather balloon set aside for us. The weather balloon was designed for payloads up to 5 lbs, we had the payload exceed that, and the package ended up pulling the balloon down in the Lake Charles Airport in a brush of trees. Thanks to the launch team turned recovery team, we were able to retrieve the balloon package and parachute virtually unscathed by cutting down the tree with a chainsaw borrowed from the airport. Sadly we lost the cutdown mechanism somehow.

Needless to say, we will attempt a relaunch. At the moment, we will be shooting for a January 8th,2011 launch, and rerunning a few tests on electronics.

Special thanks to Ashley Yelverton for some amazing photos of launch day. Below are a few pictures, for full gallery go here: http://gallery.ulcape.org/v/CrawSat+3/FailedLaunch/

- Checking Landing Predictions

- Preparing to launch

- Launch Team (Chase Savoy, Ashley Yelverton, Ethan Oliver, Trey Oliver)

- and its flying!

- and now stuck in tree…..:(

For more photos by Ashley and more information: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ashley-Isabelle-Photography/112964168719186?

Stay tuned for updates on a January 8th, 2011 Launch