Just floating....

[jpowell]

The Away 26 flight video is up at the JPA site:<br /><br />www.jpaerospace.com<br /><br />The Away 26 mission was a high altitude balloon flown in support of the JPA Airship to Orbit program.<br />It's the biggest video we've posted so far. It starts with a walk around of Away 26, then the launch. The scenes from the on board video really sway and rock. The turbulance went all the way to 80,000 feet. At the end of the on board video sequence you can see the balloon that burst flap in front of the camera. The end of the video shows the recovery.<br /><br />Suggestions always welcome.<br /><br />JP

 

[spacester]

Hi JP, thanks for posting here. You may not know that I was the first to post a link to you guys here at sdc, years ago. (98% sure of that factoid) I've always been fascinated by your seemingly - at first - madcap approach to space. I once said that I don't care if it's frogs on pogosticks, if it gets us CATS, I'm all for it, so my mind is open to the possibility that the balloon approach will work.<br /><br />I greatly admire your dogged and long term approach to the problem.<br /><br />The main engineering problem I see is the harsh operating environment for your vehicles. Can you talk about that a bit? What caused the turbulance? I apologize if the answers are on your website, I'm too lazy / busy to check there right now. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[Astrosag]

Good question. A club I'm in here at college is attempting to launch a rocket from 100,000 feet....interesting to hear the answer to this.

 

[jpowell]

The vehicle was definitely experiencing turbulance from cross winds and vertical gusts all the way to 78,000 feet.<br /><br />We have see over the years that winds from 70,000 to 120,000 feet can be just as full of strong gusts, sheers, and generally wild turbulence as in the lower atmosphere.<br /><br />High turbulance in the upper atmosphere is not as frequent, as in the lower atmosphere. We see it in about a third of our flights.<br /><br />JP<br /><br />www.jpaerospace.com