EOSS-291 Ball Aerospace BIRST Program - Recap

EOSS-291 with three  payloads from the Ball Intern Remote Sensing Team (BIRST) from Ball Aerospace in Boulder, CO weighting 11.9 pounds, two GPS-equipped radio beacons, and a 12 foot(ft) Rocketman parachute were launched on a 3000 gram balloon from the Genoa, CO launch site (N40° 13.48', W104° 4.63') at an elevation of 5,587 feet at 7:44 AM MDT on July 14, 2019.  The launch site was located a few hundred yards north of the large grain silos in the middle of the softball field.  The last packet received before balloon burst was at 9:09 AM at an altitude of 102,867 ft. after an ascent averaging 1141 ft./min.  The the maximum recorded balloon speed of 47 mph was at 9:24 AM at an altitude of 42,036 ft. on descent.    The parachute and flight string touched down at 9:51 AM at N39° 14.30', W103° 38.52' and were recovered at an elevation of 5303 ft. after a flight lasting 2 hr. and 10 min. and covering 8 miles.  The horizontal touchdown speed was 13 mph and the vertical speed was 334 ft./min.  The touchdown point was about 3.4 miles SE of the town of Limon, CO (N40° 15.33', W103° 37.39).  The payload string and parachute were retrived in a pasture about 200 yards off a ranch road.

Notes:
1) Usually for the flight summary packets from only one beacon are used for the writeup.  However, on this flight there were excellent packet files for both beacons so data was used from both beacons. 

2) For this flight a website was setup that used the software from the EOSS SDR and a live packet feed from the balloon to generate a map with a track on it and a readout of balloon flight parameters such as altitude, speed, course, a flight path prediction.  The site garnered a reasonable amount of attention with user IP addresses from:  Aspen, CO 1;  Broomfield, CO 4; Castle Rock, CO  1; Chicago  1; Colorado Springs  1; Dallas  1; Denver  11; Englewood, CO  1; Erie, CO  1; Flower Mound(Think Dallas/Ft. Worth area), TX  1: Fort Morgan  1; Fort Worth  2; Milwaukee  1; Plano, TX  3; Riverside, CA  2;  St. Louis 1, Wichita, KS, 1

NØLP

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.