This mission was meant to be the best, as everything was meticulously organized this morning, we were on schedule for a perfect launch with perfect conditions, but fate was not on our side. Our first problem was the delay. Since we were launching from the weather service at the airport, we had to wait until they were finished with their launch before we could do anything. This pushed the launch back by two hours. No matter.
Then came the technical problems. The unbreakable tracking software that had taken weeks to build, broke as it was on a secure network and was unable to update our website for all the viewers. We only discovered this after we had launched and it took half an hour to finally give up, as the balloon was rising at an alarming rate.
Another problem was that too much Hydrogen was put into the balloon, meaning it rose way too fast and burst too early, which resulted in the landing location being 100km closer than predicted, which put it in the Groenlandberg mountains. To make matters worse, the backup GPS unit failed to send any useful information to our tracking site and stated that the balloon was off the coast of South America, when in fact it was not. We tried to fix this problem in the car, but unfortunately the technology smelled fear, so naturally it did not work.
The payload landed at about 17:30, approximately 2km from the nearest access point. When we reached the access point, we found there was another road running adjacent to the one we were on, that went in the direction we needed to go, however in order to get there required maneuvers that 20-year-old mid-range sedans were not designed to do. But our car handled it like a champ, until we got to the road when it failed to give any power, as the clutch was wearing out… So we had to walk from there. It was starting to get dark and we had no idea what the terrain was like, and there were no paths, so we had to trek through thick vegetation to try and recover the payload. Due to failing technology (for the umpteenth time that day), 4 hours later we found ourselves 500m away from a successful retrieval and in a potentially dangerous situation, with limited night hiking equipment, dropping energy levels, winds and gullies. Suffice to say, things weren’t going so well…
We found the payload at just before 22:00 and were home by 1:30am. The next day I found that all the photos were blurry, as the lens had condensation from the previous day’s launch that hadn’t been wiped clean. The footage was very shaky and was constantly spinning due to the extreme ascent rate.
However there were some positives. I have learned a lot from this launch in terms of camera and payload set up, working with the balloon first hand, overcoming tracking issues and what to take with for recovery. This will result in a better launch next time and hopefully be able to film the landing! I am going to try and build my own tracker this week, as I don’t want them to keep failing due to petty limitations which I have no control over.
I am trying to get my website up as soon as possible, but it is a lot harder than I first anticipated and is taking longer than expected, however it should be up within a week or so.
