Pre-Launch Day

Less than 24 hours remains before the day of the launch and we are ironing out the last few wrinkles in our plan. We are running through equipment checks, charging batteries and making sure that everything works properly.

Today we reported our flight plans with the Arkansas Notam (Notice to Airmen) Office of the FAA.  They insuructed us to notify the Little Rock Flight Standards office who instructed us to notify the Little Rock Air Traffic Control, who directed us to Texas Air Traffic Control Where we got clearance to launch.  We will  report to Little Rock and Memphis ATC a few minutes before the launch.   *Note to any prospective baloon launchers... Start this process a few days before your projected launch date.*

Attaching the payload Lanyard to the neck of the balloon.  The Balloon is made of a thin lightweight material similar to a medical latex glove.  When handling the balloon, we use latex gloves to keep the oils from out skin from deterioriating the baloon material.  The neck is made of stronger material.  We inserted a pvc sleeve inside the neck to pass the helium hose through and attached the lanyard to this sleeve with zipties.    

We reworked the payload parcel.  We used two faucet insulators which sandwich a piece of plexiglass that holds the camera mount and gps unit.  We connected the camera and GPS together to make sure that in case of total payload failure, the camera stays with the GPS.

No trip to the outer reaches would be complete without an R2 unit to keep us away from the dark side.