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Leonids & High-Altitude Balloons: University of North DakotaAerospace Hopes to Collect Dust Samples

If all goes well, the University of North Dakota Aerospace (UND) Space Studies Dept. is planning to launch an unmanned, high-altitude balloon on Nov. 18 to track the Leonid  meteor shower and (hopefully) collect extraterrestrial dust samples.  

UND is not as state-of-the-art as NASA Marshall (which is also launching a balloon; see news release pasted on below)--we're on a shoe-string--but our "strato-balloon" team, using high quality balloons, is very good at building rugged instruments, as well as tracking and recovering payloads.  

Recently, a UND Aerospace balloon reached an extremely high altitude (in "near space") on a recent flight.  I'll keep you posted.  It's an exiting attempt for us.  Meanwhile, here's our strato-balloon project Web page with some great near-space images taken from past flights; cam is mounted on the payload gondola.  The Leonid project probably won't be posted until after the fact assuming we launch the bugger!
http://people.aero.und.edu/~nordlie/balloon/ 

—--------

                                  "NASA Balloon Astronomers
                                  Prepare for Leonids"

                                  By Glen Golightly
                                  Houston Bureau Chief

                                  Nov 02 1999 06:13:25 ET 
                                                         
                  HUNTSVILLE, Alabama * Astronomers at
                  NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
                  Huntsville, Alabama are preparing to launch their
                  third attempt to capture meteor particles and
                  show it all on video. They intend to release their
                  specially equipped, low-cost balloon at about
                  1:30 a.m. ET on November 18, to catch the peak
                  of the Leonid meteor shower.

                  Some astronomers are predicting a meteor storm
                  as the Earth's passes through the debris trail
                  scattered across its orbital path from the comet
                  Tempel-Tuttle at the end of a 33-year cycle. In
                  1966, up to 100,000 meteors per hour were
                  reported. A typical shower is usually about 10 to
                  20 meteors per hour.

                  If all goes well, the balloon should rise to about
                  100,000 feet in about three hours and descend
                  for 21 minutes until touchdown. As science
                  projects go, it’s about as economical as it gets.
                  Ed Myszka, a Ham radio hobbyist, built the
                  20-pound payload -- an aluminum box containing
                  a video camera and capture material that works
                  much like flypaper to trap particles no bigger
                  than a grain of sand. NASA contributed the
                  balloon and some other equipment. 

                  The video signal and information about the
                  balloon’s location, altitude and air temperature
                  are downlinked to Marshall and posted live to the
                  World Wide Web. Local computer and amateur
                  radio enthusiasts will help track and recover the
                  balloon and its payload. The total bill runs to
                  about $4,000.

                  "It’s science on a dime," Myszka said. "We tried
                  it just for fun."

                  The scientists also launched balloons during last
                  August’s Perseids shower and last year’s
                  Leonids shower.

                  An estimated 80,000 people tuned in last year to
                  watch video from the Leonids Live! balloon and to
                  hear live commentary provided by NASA
                  astrophysicist John Horack, said Linda Porter, a
                  computer engineer at Marshall. This year,
                  organizers are hoping for even more people to
                  watch on the web.

                  "We caught the fireballs last year," Porter said,
                  referring to eight fireballs imaged by the balloon’s
                  video camera. "It’d be great if we caught a storm
                  this year." 

                  Whether the Leonids storm, shower or fizzle out,
                  Myszka and crew will have to recover the
                  payload once it lands. Last year, the balloon
                  landed in a briar patch in bear country near
                  Chatsworth, Georgia.

                  Current weather predictions call for the balloon to
                  land in Tennessee about 127 miles
                  east-northeast of Marshall, but that could change
                  depending on upper winds at the time.

                  A global positioning system aboard helps
                  pinpoint the location. There are also placards
                  affixed to the payload asking anyone who finds it
                  to call and let the crew know.

                  So far the payload has always turned up -- but
                  usually missing one small item.

                  "People take the NASA logos as souvenirs,"
                  Porter said.

                   

                   




  

>

LOUIS VARRICCHIO
 Environmental Information Specialist &
 Producer/Writer, "Our Changing Planet"
  (Visit OCP-TV on the Web at: www.umac.org/ocp)
  Upper Midwest Aerospace Consortium
  Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences
  University of North Dakota
  Grand Forks, N.D. 58202-9007  U.S.A.
    Phone: 701-777-2482
    Fax: 701-777-2940
    E-mail: varricch@umac.org (in N.D.); morbius@together.net (in Vt.)

"Behind every man alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by
which the dead outnumber the living. Since the dawn of time, a hundred
billion human beings have walked the planet Earth." -- Arthur C. Clarke

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