2009 Issue

24 O UR 18-MEMBER FLIGHT TEAM OF undergradu- ate students and faculty “funhogs” loaded into cars and trucks at 5 am. Three hours later, we littered the Duchesne tarmac with helium tanks, regulator hoses, and last minute, wind-swept instrument checklists. Within the next hour, the assembled flight stack - two styrofoam boxes jacketed by bright yellow home-sewn bags, containing the radios, GPS receivers, cameras, and sensors – was ready for launch. At 9:14 am, borne aloft by a commercial helium- filled latex balloon, our student-designed and student-built instrument package started radio- ing flight telemetry to the ground while snapping digital images and recording temperature and pressure for the hour flight. The first flight reached an altitude of 79,056 feet and was successfully recovered from the northeastern Utah desert. Weber State’s High Altitude Reconnaissance Balloon for Outreach and Research (HARBOR) is a near-space platform for delivering student built science and engineering projects to altitudes above 100,000 ft. Our basic flight system, based on the successful BOREALIS programat Montana State University, consists of one or more payload boxes attached to a parachute which is, in turn, connected to a high altitude weather balloon. A redundant systemof GPS receivers and ham radio transmitters sends telemetry to a chase team on the ground. The complete system includes a small digital camera, and pressure and temperature sensors that characterize the environmental con- ditions of the flight. These environmental conditions, at times similar to those on Mars, provide students an opportunity to engineer robust instruments that can survive extreme conditions. Flight instruments must withstand extreme changes in temperature (+30 C to -30 C during flight) and pressures as low as 0.01 atmospheres. The instruments must also be automated or controlled remotely. Amass limit of 12 lbs, set by FAA regulations, as well as the limited power that such restrictions imply, impose additional design constraints. The system also requires pre-flight testing, documentation, and flight checklists. The result is a real-life experience in science and engineering that emulates the type of mis- sion-driven design processes found in the space flight industry. Space flight for everyone Space flight is one of themost exciting applica- tions of science and engineering. It’s also expen- sive, challenging, and often dangerous. How can we leverage the excitement of space flight in a learning environment where people are expected tomakemistakes? In this context, there are several virtues to high altitude ballooning. It’s cheap A basic payload delivery system, including off-the-shelf radio, GPS, and camera compo- nents, can be developed for only a few thousand The Weber State University HARBOR Balloon Project DR. JOHN ARMSTRONG, WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY AND JIM THACHER On July 28, 2008, Weber State University students embarked on a mission: turn the Duchesne municipal airstrip into Utah’s first spaceport by sending a home grown instrument payload to near-space. HARBOR team members prepare the balloon dur- ing the fill prep.