Four tiny University of ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ at Boulder experiments will be lofted by a large helium balloon from Windsor, Colo., to a height of about 17 miles before drifting back to earth on the eastern plains via parachute on Saturday, April 21.
The experiments were designed and built by undergraduates affiliated with the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Space Grant Consortium based in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. The high-altitude balloon will be launched by the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-based "Edge of Space Sciences" group, or EOSS, a nonprofit organization that has been flying balloon payloads for ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ students since the early 1990s.
Each of the four ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder experiments is enclosed in a cube approximately four inches on a side and one pound in weight. They will be tethered beneath the balloon, which is expected to rise as high as 90,000 feet in about 90 minutes. The eight-foot-diameter balloon will expand to roughly 30 feet in diameter as it rises to roughly 17 miles, then burst and release the payloads via a parachute.
The students involved in the project, primarily freshmen and sophomores from various disciplines across campus, developed the experiments this semester in a class titled "Gateway to Space." The class is taught by Chris Koehler, deputy director and research coordinator for the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Space Grant Consortium.
EOSS volunteers will track the balloon with Global Positioning Satellite equipment following its scheduled 9 a.m. launch. The payloads are expected to drift eastward for roughly 100 miles with the prevailing winds and then will be retrieved by a team of EOSS chasers.
"The event is designed to provide aspiring space scientists and engineers with practical experience in dealing with spaceflight," said Koehler. "This is a great learning experience for younger students."
The launch site is about one mile east of Exit 262 on Interstate 25 just west of Windsor. EOSS participants also will be flying a special video camera that transmits live television back to a ground station at the Windsor launch site.
One ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ experiment consists of a digital camera that will take images of Earth at set intervals in time. The inside of the cube will be insulated with a foam core to prevent sharp temperature changes. The eight team members spent $243 on the experiment.
A second payload will carry a small camera that will be used to take photographs of the atmosphere and how it thins as the balloon rises. At the peak altitude of 85,000 to 90,000 feet, the sky will be totally black, said Koehler. The images are expected to show the curvature of the Earth and the different layers of the atmosphere. The seven team members spent $211 on the payload.
A third experiment will observe the high-altitude effects of temperature and air pressure on a live spider to better understand how organisms react to high altitudes and varying air pressure. The payload also is equipped with a 35-millimeter digital camera to record the spider's behavior. The six team members spent $300 on the experiment.
The fourth payload will measure temperature and humidity of the atmosphere as the balloon and instrument ascend. Equipped with a power supply and a camera, the experiment will allow students to analyze water vapor and measure the temperature between the ground and the edge of space, and correlate them with photos. The seven team members spent $300 on the payload.
Created with NASA funding in 1989, the ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥ Space Grant Consortium was designed to give students - primarily undergraduates - experience in designing, building and flying space instruments. Of the 50 space grant consortiums in every state, ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥'s has been the most active, designing, building and flying three sounding rocket payloads and two space shuttle payloads in the past decade.
The consortium consists of students from ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder as well as 15 other colleges and institutions in the state. The consortium is headquartered at ÃÛÌÇÖ±²¥-Boulder and directed by Elaine Hansen.