The new High Altitude Balloon (HAB) Club at Beaufort High School traveled to Barnwell High School in Barnwell where the students released a 1,500g weather balloon on Friday, May 4.
Attached to the balloon was a parachute and capsule. The capsule contained two different types of electronic tracking equipment. The primary device was a ham radio tracking device with GPS. The second was a SPOT Satellite Messenger. The capsule also contained a digital camera, set to take a photo every 15 seconds, a HD camcorder and a second camcorder that faced up and captured images of the balloon bursting. The balloon climbed to over 101,000 feet before bursting and
traveled some 30 miles, coming down a mile north of Ehrhardt, S.C.
This was a training flight for the new club. They hope to pair with students from Lady’s Island Middle School during the 2012-13 school year to launch high altitude science experiments.
Photos of the launch can be seen at http://thetalon.smugmug.com/Misc/Space/More-Testing and a video of the balloon burst can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX6UXHLXjb0.
