Something took off from our airstrip and climbed to near space (75,000ft) before descending and landing again.
To give you an idea:
100,000ft is in the Stratosphere and is where the ozone layer is located.
It is three and a half times the height of Everest.
Airliners fly about 35,000ft.
The SR-71 Blackbird spy plane flew at 80,000ft.
The Space station orbits only three and a half times higher at 350,000ft.
In contrast Mercy Air fly locally at around 4500ft and only up to to 12000ft when we go international.
If you've glimpsed the photos yet you will understand that this was no ordinary aircraft but two weather balloons that were launched as part of a project organised by Yellobric (http://www.schoolspacerace.com/news/). This was part of their 'School Space Race' program that aimed to encourage school children from around the globe to use maths, physics and geography to build, launch, and retrieve an unmanned craft as high as possible on a budget.
One of the pupils in an amusing t shirt |
There was quite a lot of preparation to ensure all connections were.. er..connected...
..and that the tracking equipment was talking to the transponders.
The payload of the transmitter, camera, radar reflector and parachute was 0.55 kg and helium was used to create a lift of 0.65 kg.
And the crowd went wild! |
..before the balloons were lined up for the countdown...
..while the cars drove off to recover them.
There was a nifty website that we used to see progress. A screen shot shows the tracks of the balloons with one achieving a maximum altitude of 22432m (73596ft) - their target altitude was 100,000ft.
Thank you.
Mercy Air team.
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