So those of you who have been keeping in contact with me, know that this summer I’ve been doing some research for NASA, in conjunction with St. Francis College, University of Vermont, Milton High School and Adirondack Community College. Well those of you who didn’t know, let me fill you in: we are building and launching weather balloons with payloads that contain GPS, radio, TinyTrakers, cameras and for recovery purposes a flash and chirper. Anyhow, for the summer we had four launches planned and three of those four launches were successful; the first two launches were in New York State, and the last two were in Vermont State.
The first launch, we were too unprepared; the second launch was successful, where our balloon made it to 62,000+ feet in the atmosphere but after that we stopped receiving transmissions from our radio and GPS (maybe something shook loose, batteries died… who knows…); third launch was a Low-Altitude launch and our balloon made it to 48,000+ feet in the atmostphere, but that sucker drifted all the way to the Canadian border. We didn’t track it that far, but someone did find it and returned it to us. The last launch was the most successful: our balloon made it to 85,000+ feet in the air and drifted over 70 miles away from the launch site. Not only did we track it that far, but our GPS was so efficient that we tracked our balloon literally to the ground, so we were able to recover it ourselves. In the search team, there were only three students of the entire research group present, and I was lucky enough to be one of them.
By building, launching, tracking and recovering that balloon, we became the first College in the state of New York to successfully accomplish this; furthermore, we are the first BLACKS to do it as well… not to mention that our balloon went to the edge of space (the only other people who get their balloons that high are the National Weather Service).
So right now, I am feeling a great sense of accomplishment and pride.
The BONUS? We get to present our findings in Puerto Rico =)