Re: New Balloon cruising at 120 at the moment

[klunkerbus]

I haven't been following the weather for the entire path, but I'm impressed the balloon survived the weather in the northerly path through the middle of the US. 

FOLLOWUP COMMENT: Damn. Hadn't meant to suggest impending doom for the balloon. 

[Red Squirrel]

The balloon is a 36" party balloon that is usually inflated with helium and usually says" Happy Birthday" or " Too Old to Retire " or some other stuff. This type of balloon is called a Superpressure balloon, however the name is a bit misleading, as the "super pressure" in this balloon is only about 1/4 psi. What happens with a normal weather balloon, that is made of latex, is it goes up and expands up to 10 times it's volume till it bursts and then comes down by parachute. In a Superpressure balloon the envelope is less elastic and can't expand more than maybe 25%. It will rise till it is expanded, and cannot expand any more. At this point the density of the gas in the balloon becomes constant, at a certain altitude, and it will float along at this level ...depending on the weight of what it is lifting. In this case the float level is 10000 meters or 32800 feet.

All explained on the pages of this site http://qrp-labs.com/ultimate3/ve3kcl-balloons/ve3kcl-s9.html

Oh wow I missed that part, that's awesome.  so really this could pretty much stay in the sky for quite a while then, it would have to basically fail from fatigue or slow leak or something. 

[Mr.B]

Fascinating.
Thanks for sharing.

[Silveruser]

No updates today, did NORAD shot it down?   

[macboy]

It might take a dip into the pacific.
Edit: maybe not, might endup on the mainland and take a little detour over the US to pop back where it started.

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=221.92,32.93,330

I think the launch site for the balloons was critical for this endeavor, seems it caught the jet-stream right on, good job!

That is a very interesting visualization of winds. Unfortunately, your link shows surface winds. The following will show the winds at 700 hpa which is closer to the 10000 ft altitude of the balloon:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/700hPa/orthographic=258.83,40.57,330

[DaveBev]

Hi All

Well yesterday the balloon did not wake up as usual. It had made it clear over a terrible storm in the Midwest Usa and was entering North Dakota when the sunlight and battery ran out ,and it went to sleep.

Unfortunately there is no "Walt Disney Ending" on this flight.

The flight however, was pretty amazing, and averaged 3000km per day and the only fuel used was sunlight and a couple of cubic feet of hydrogen, that could have been produced by some  balls of aluminum foil and drain cleaner..

So EEVblog members ... get building....

Thanks for your interest.

Dave

[klunkerbus]

Pretty impressive flight. Being a licensed but inactive ham, the flight was interesting to follow. Be sure to start another thread on your next flight...

[German_EE]

11/10 for this, it has been a fascinating project. I look forward to the next flight!

        

[TheSteve]

A very cool project - so painful to not know how it met its demise.

[nctnico]

A very cool project - so painful to not know how it met its demise.

Same here! Perhaps social media can be used to find the balloon. After all it almost made it back home!

[ez24]

No updates today, did NORAD shot it down?   

It would be my guess considering the location.  Probably with 20mm cannon.

[Halcyon]

Give it a few days, they'll be some grainy photos/footage in the news about a "UFO" in that area. ;-)
 

[ez24]

I suggest the OP contact NORAD and just ask them.  You never know.

[continuo]

Would such a small, mostly non-metallic object show up on radar? 

[Halcyon]

I suggest the OP contact NORAD and just ask them.  You never know.

Or you could try their TTY line... the password is joshua

[XOIIO]

Man, I've always wanted to do something like this, awesome, even if it did end abruptly.

[Brumby]

An abrupt end was always likely - but it is an amazing achievement.

[Kilrah]

Maybe it landed home in your backyard? 

[dannyf]

Fascinating to read. Well done.

[botcrusher]

Actually, yes. The f-22 has a radar ping the size of a marble.

[SeanB]

Depends on the frequency, if you had a metal length that resonated as a quarter wave at some point in the radar chip it will show up quite well. Very hard to make a radar absorber that is good over a wide band, you generally can achieve reasonable attenuation in some bands and this comes at the expense of not having any straight lines or regular curves.

[ez24]

I think NORAD has big antennas in North Dakota pointed north.  Here is the contact info for them

http://www.norad.mil/Contact.aspx\

Actually they may get a kick out of this knowing they shot down a balloon that went around the world vs a balloon sent up by stoned Washingtions

They may let the next one go by if they know about it 

I sure hope there will be another one and if too expensive try Kickstarter

[Melt-O-Tronic]

11/10 for this, it has been a fascinating project. I look forward to the next flight!

        

No kidding!  This thread went right to 11 and just kept on going.   

[MT]

So EEVblog members ... get building....
Thanks for your interest.

Mars next, someone can do it in a similar low fat/sugar mode!
Example, make a bigger balloon who then lifts the rocket as high as possible, then launch rocket, direction mars, GPS wont work! 

[miguelvp]

I think NORAD has big antennas in North Dakota pointed north.  Here is the contact info for them

http://www.norad.mil/Contact.aspx\

Actually they may get a kick out of this knowing they shot down a balloon that went around the world vs a balloon sent up by stoned Washingtions

They may let the next one go by if they know about it 

I sure hope there will be another one and if too expensive try Kickstarter

I really thought you were kidding.

Of course they just shoot random things off the sky, because of course they have to spend our tax money right?