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Published: July 16, 2008 07:20 am    print this story  

Space balloon launch a success

For a video of Monday's launch, see link at right

By MIKE JAMES - The Independent

BOWLING GREEN Watched by a curious crowd, student and faculty space researchers launched a balloon Monday to the edge of space, where it harvested valuable data for future missions, a Morehead State University scientist said.

The balloon soared more than 91,000 feet above the earth, high enough to see the planet’s curvature and the inky blackness of space. Instruments tethered to it recorded and transmitted data to researchers back on the ground.

“The launch was a resounding success,” said MSU space science professor Ben Malphrus, who is director of the university’s Space Science Center. “All the payload experiments worked ... the data looked beautiful.”

The launch was a project of a consortium of Kentucky colleges and universities called Kentucky Space, which has one suborbital rocket mission under its belt and plans to send a satellite into orbit in January.

Morehead State students helped design the payload instruments, which collected data Kentucky Space will use to design further orbital launches.

The payload included high-resolution cameras that recorded stunning images of the earth and the blackness of space.

The launch team spent much of Sunday on a dry run, testing the balloon and its instruments and rehearsing their pre-flight and launch procedures. Then at dawn Monday they took it all to the Bowling Green airport where they inflated the balloon in a hangar and attached a long tether dangling with instruments.

After last-minute tests, crew members tugged the balloon outside and released it to soar into the flawless blue of the Western Kentucky sky.

Scientists had hoped the balloon would make it to 100,000 feet, but anything over 80,000 feet was cause for celebration, Malphrus said.

At 91,277 feet, above 99 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere, the balloon finally burst. A parachute deployed on the way down and a GPS instrument helped researchers recover the payload.

The Morehead students helped design the payload and were primarily responsible for the communications system that beamed data back to earth.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.

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Photos


A photo made Monday afternoon 91,277 feet above Kentucky shows instrument packages tethered to a high-altitude balloon launched by a team of students from six univeristies. Hand out/Kentucky Space (Click for larger image)


Morehead State University student Jessamyn Delgado (right) releases the instrument package as a high-altitude balloon launched Monday by Kentucky Space at the Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport. The balloon is carrying a student-designed science payload that will record data at the edge of space for altitude control, which will aid in the design of satellites designed by Kentucky Space in the future. Joe Imel/Daily News (Bowling Green) (Click for larger image)


A high-altitude balloon launched Monday by Kentucky Space at the Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport climbs into the atmosphere. The balloon is carrying a student-designed science payload that will record data at the edge of space for altitude control, which will aid in the design of satellites designed by Kentucky Space in the future. Joe Imel/Daily News (Bowling Green) (Click for larger image)


The curvature of the earth from 91,277 feet above Kentucky is seen in this photo made with a point and shoot camera inside an instrument package tethered to a high-altitude balloon Monday. Hand out/Kentucky Space (Click for larger image)



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