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The surprise package arrived at Portland State on October 17, 2005: the lost payload from a balloon launch three months before.
Ranchers David and Janette Roth stumbled on the compact cargo before the winter snows had a chance to bury it for perhaps another half a year. It was in amazingly good shape for having fallen from the fringes of space. On it was written a return address and an offer for a small reward to the person who recovered the package. The money wasn’t much, but returning it seemed the right thing to do, so the Roths packed it up (they had to break an antenna to get it in the box), sent it off at the tiny Christmas Valley post office, and returned to their lives.
For the recipients—Mark Weislogel, associate professor of mechanical engineering, and his students—receiving the package was an unexpected thrill. The payload, which they had given up for lost, included a digital camera, complete with 200 stunning images—all flawlessly intact. Taken from more than 20 miles up, they showed the curvature of the Earth, with a band of deep blue separating the warm summer daylight of Central Oregon from the freezing blackness of space. The Three Sisters, Mount Bachelor, and Broken Top show up as a tight cluster of white specks.
Thrills, disappointments, victories, defeats—they’re all a way of life for Weislogel and his select crew of engineering students who take part in Launch PSU, a NASA-sponsored program in which students send helium-filled balloons and their high-tech payloads out of the atmosphere. In the two years they’ve been doing this, the group has performed three high-altitude launches in Central Oregon, as well as a handful of small demonstrations at county fairs where they’ve elevated dogs and chickens.
“We’re kind of weird over here. If we get interested in something, we do it,” says Weislogel.
The program is so popular that Weislogel is forced to turn students away. Part of it is the sheer geek factor. If you’re into ham radio operation, electronics, global positioning systems, and the challenge of designing complex electronics that can fit in a space the size of an Altoid tin, this is the place to be. The other part is that it’s just plain fun: the camaraderie, the all-nighters, the adventure of four-wheeling across the desert to chase down your returning cargo.
“When I was in school, this was my favorite kind of class,” Weislogel says.
Portland State’s group established such a good reputation for being able to launch balloons that Oregon State University enlisted its help and the groups have now done joint launches. The projects give students great hands-on experience in solving technical problems that can’t be done in any other environment.
Each high-altitude balloon carries items such as cameras, radio gear, GPS devices—all of which requires communication with the crew on the ground. Temperatures plunge to -60 degrees Fahrenheit when the balloons reach their peak altitude, so someone has to design heaters that will keep the components working. All the technical gear must be small and lightweight. Weislogel limits his balloon teams to six students or less, so each team has a challenging load of puzzles to solve before launch day.
Students do most of their problem solving during the 10 weeks leading up to launch day. On the evening before, with their van loaded with gear, they leave PSU and head over the mountains for sagebrush country. Trying to sleep is pointless. When they arrive at their designated spot outside of Millican, they have only a few short hours before they have to start preparing for launch, a process that begins around 3:30 a.m.
“A lot of the fun is the sleep deprivation,” says student Joshua Hatch, an amateur radio operator, who is on track for a master’s degree in mechanical engineering this June.
“In the van we have the helium tanks, sleeping bags, and a lot of loud music,” says Hatch. “Everyone brings music. It becomes a contest of who can find the cheesiest song in the collection.”
Which at times means actually composing one or two. Bob McGown, who studied sand dune formations in Africa from a hot air balloon, is the resident song writer. Among the group he is famous for ditties sung to the tunes of “Satisfaction” and “Yesterday.”
Hamming was an easy game to play
The antenna needs a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in telemetry.
Pre-dawn is ideal for launching balloons because of the lack of wind. But that means that the hardest work—assembling all the parts and filling the balloon—is done in the freezing cold by the light of headlamps and lanterns. The balloons, made of latex or polyethylene, can cost $1,000, so the crew is careful not to snag the material on the surrounding brush. Students work according to their specialties: the electronics experts make sure the batteries, antennas, and heaters are in working order. The mechanical experts—including McGown, an experienced rock climber who knows knots—make sure everything is put together correctly. Then they hook the balloon up to the helium tanks and watch it come to life.
Ironically, the pre-dawn hours are good for another purpose. At launch, the balloon rises high enough to meet the sun’s rays while it’s still relatively dark on the ground, “making it the biggest star you’ll ever see,” says Weislogel. It actually makes it easier for the crew to watch the balloon than if it was launched during full sun.
The group whoops and cheers as the balloon lifts off and gains altitude. But the going up part is only half the mission. The other is the coming down.
All the balloons are designed to pop, either on their own or with help from a device onboard. As the balloon rises higher and higher—up to six times the height of a commercial jet’s cruising altitude—the atmospheric pressure decreases, allowing the helium inside to expand to the point where the balloon bursts. A parachute carries the payload gently to the ground, although at that high altitude it may have to fall a long way before there is enough air to fill it. The crew has been tracking the payload this whole time, so when the descent begins, Weislogel and his student make a mad dash to meet it.
It doesn’t always go well.
In their July 2005 launch, the group raced across unpaved desert in vehicles woefully inadequate for the job. One, a Ford Taurus, scraped up so much sagebrush that the engine caught on fire. Turns out the fire was only one problem; the car bottomed out so hard on the rutted terrain that it smashed the transmission fluid pan and drained it completely.
On another occasion, the group lost GPS contact with the payload, so they enlisted a local pilot to track it from the air. The pilot spotted the parachute and made wide circles around its descent path so the PSU students knew which direction to look.
Being on the balloon team helped Donovan Finnestad win a place in a PSU group that will participate this year in NASA’s Reduced Gravity Flight Opportunity Program in Houston. Two teams from PSU out of 65 from throughout the country will conduct experiments onboard a flight craft nicknamed the Vomit Comet. The KC-135 flies in a parabolic arc to attain zero gravity for 18 to 20 seconds, 30 times in a row.
For Finnestad, there’s a direct link between being selected for the Houston project and the work he’s done in the balloon program. There’s just nothing like the experience of sending a packet of electronics up into the ozone to get your experimental juices flowing.
Even if a rancher has to return it to you in the mail.
John Kirkland, a Portland freelance writer, wrote the articles “A Painful Interlude” and “Rising Temperatures, Shrinking Glaciers” in the winter 2006 PSU Magazine.
