EOSS-292 Colorado Space Grant Consortium Summer Flight - Recap

EOSS-292 with four University of Colorado Space Grant payloads and a University of CO ADS-B beacon under development totaling 8.27 pounds, three GPS-equipped radio beacons, and a 12-foot Rocketman parachute were launched on a 3000 gram balloon from the Limon, CO launch site (N39° 14.16', 104° 4.517') at an elevation of 5,388 feet at 07:39:10 AM MDT on July 27, 2019.  The last packet received before balloon burst was at 9:23 AM at an altitude of 107,050 ft. after an ascent averaging 977 ft./min^*.  An interesting event happened on this flight with regard to the maximum recorded speed of the flight string.  Two of the flight string’s three GPS's recorded speeds of 54 mph three time:  twice at around 106,000 ft.  (106,087 and 106,214) at about 9:22 AM very near burst and once at 45,019 ft. at 9:38 AM on descent.  This is the first time since flight summaries have been posted that the maximum speed occurred above 100,00 ft.  A max speed in the 40,000 ft. range is normally what occurs.  This is because the jet stream is usually at its strongest around this altitude.

The parachute and flight string touched down at 10:07 AM at N39° 4.63', W103° 59.35' at an elevation of 6,179 ft. after a flight lasting 2 hr. and 41 min.  The horizontal touchdown speed was 12 mph and the vertical speed was 888 ft./min.  The touchdown point was about 19 miles from the launch site and seven miles south of the town of Matheson, CO (N39° 10.404', W103° 58.59').  The flight string and the parachute were easily recovered by the students and the EOSS team in a wind turbine farm just off Elbert County Road 999.  (Checkout the pics further down on this web page.)  The straight-line distance between launch site and touchdown was 6.7 miles, although the map below shows the actual flight path to be much longer.  NØLP

*  On this flight there were three transmitting APRS beacons.  Through some clever work KBØTVJ and his son were about to construct a single ASCII text file with all the beacons packets in it sorted by packet transmit time.  This file was used for this flight summary.  Therefore, the most appropriate packet for a specific flight characteristic, e.g., max altitude, was used.

 EOSS members use this link for mileage reimbursement: https://goo.gl/forms/V7r4DKZyEpod5auj1 Please submit reimbursement request within seven days of the flight. If longer, please notify the club treasurer that an additional request has been submitted.