Launch! T+20 minutes!

We have liftoff!  The launch went without a hitch.  We are a bit worried about a slow ascent rate, but watching the balloon disappear was really satisfying. We are still tracking now.  There will be a tense 4 or 5 hours after it leaves range until we hope to get a new GPS location upon impact.  WOOOOOOO!!!!

Here are the actual GPS location data from the balloon after about 15 minutes.  Surprisingly it is following Route 29.

Here is the simulation data for 12 noon, with a ceiling of about 60000 feet.  Landing in Culpeper would be ideal!  You can see the simulation closely follows the real data for the first 15 minutes!

Excitement!  Thanks to Jonathan, Tyler and Stache for help with the build and purchasing components.  Also a shout out to Pete, who watched the lauch.

Update:  It's now 6:15pm, almost 6 hours since the launch.  Although our rate of ascent seemed a bit slow, we still expected the balloon to reach 60,000 in 5 hours, then fall for around an hour.  If the balloon's ceiling was closer to 24km, that would mean another hour of ascent, but it's hard to tell exactly.  As the sun sets, the likelihood of finding the payload becomes much smaller.  It may be that it landed in an area with no cell phone coverage, in which case we have to hope someone will find it and call us.


Here's the live GPS data; if we ever get an update it will show here:

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com