DAY8: HACORD launch!

Today is the launch day of HACORD. We have to follow a tight schedule, which started early in the morning,

06.30 Electronics payload showup

06.45 Test with payloads

07.30 Launch crew showup

0800 FCT start

0900 FCT end, payload refurb

10.00 start of countdown

14.00 Launch

16.00 Float

18.00 Cut down

20.00 Campaign dinner

Before starting the countdown of four hours the three experiments, including us, wanted to do a final functional and interference test. The troubles regarding the ELink data transmission of last day seemed to be solved.

This gave approval to the payload manager to start the FCT (Flight Compatibility Test) in which the giant truc, called Hercules, picks up the gondola with all experiments on board and drives it to the launchpad. In the meanwhile all the teams are supposed to sit in their groundstations to redo the functional tests.

After the FCT, some refurbishing was required at other experiments and finally the countdown of four hours could be started. During the countdown the ground crew made everything ready for launch. Due to a lot of efficient work from all operating teams we were more than two hours ahead of schedule .

T-2h30: Hercules moves to the line up with the wind direction.

T-1h20: Start of balloon unfolding.

T-0h50: Start of balloon inflation.

T-0h00: Launch

At saturday 10/10 on 11 am the balloon lifted off while moving in the north direction.

After 45 minutes the balloon reached an altitude of 11 km and started moving in the east direction. After 1h40min the balloon reached its floating altitude of 28 km where it stayed for two hours. With a horizontal speed of 50 km/h it crossed the border with Finland. Surprisingly it was still possible to see the balloon flying from Esrange. At this moment the volume of the balloon was 12000 m³. Three hours and a half after the launch the decision has been made to cut down the balloon. It finally landed in Finland, 25 km east of the Swedish border.

Although the recovery of the experiment was planned for the next day, we were already happy with the success of the mission, based on the data that was transmitted to us through the ELink system. This has been celibrated afterwards during a great campaign dinner with all the student teams.