From the ice: BARREL Status Update #12

The last day of 2013 turned out to be an exciting one for the BARREL team. The Halley team launched Payload 2I at 1144 UT. The balloon reached float altitude of 38 km at 1344 UT.  One member of the SANAE team acted as ground station for Halley while the rest of their team set up to launch their first payload. At 1735 UT, the SANAE team launched Payload 2W, with Halley acting as their ground station. The balloon reached float altitude of 38 km at 1930 UT. Both payloads are working nominally and have been transferred to the UCSC MOC. Payload 2T continues to move around the continent, maintaining an altitude above 35 km. Some weak precipitation was observed by it earlier today despite the fact that geomagnetic activity was quite low. We are looking forward to a possible increase in activity in the next few days due to a coronal hole coming into view on the sun. Fingers crossed! We don't anticipate another launch tomorrow. The winds are predicted to be high for the next day or two.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Robyn

Launch of 2I

This morning the Halley team was able to launch 2I. Now the big question will be does this year's 2I outlast last years? 1I was our longest lasting payload last year and was up for 38 days. It was a huge outlier but one never knows.

SANAE also may have a launch. We should hopefully know more by the time of the telecom today.

From the Ice: BARREL Update # 11

Hi all, 

The Halley team got Payload 2I flight-ready today and were set up to launch, but had to cancel yet again due to the surface wind conditions. Today was expected to be a bit marginal anyway.  I'm sure our luck will improve soon! The Halley forecast for tomorrow looks more favorable, so I hope to have better news for you then. The SANAE team are also ready to launch, so just waiting for better weather.

Robyn

From the Ice: BARREL Status Update #10

Hi all,

    We got the rest of our cargo today including flight batteries! So, we got Payload 1I assembled and bench tested. We expect to have it flight ready early tomorrow if ground conditions are good. We have a possible launch opportunity at Halley in the afternoon Monday. The SANAE team is flight ready and are now just waiting for some good weather. The winds are expected to be too high for a launch there tomorrow.

Payload 2T continues to look good and is now well past  the Antarctic peninsula. Everything is working nominally and the altitude profile looks great. We actually detected a gamma ray burst early in the morning and some very weak precipitation later in the day. Nothing too exciting yet, but it's great to see that things are working well.

Robyn

From the ice: BARREL Status Update #9

Payload 2T continues to look good and is now halfway across the Antarctic peninsula. Everything is working nominally and the altitude profile looks good so far.

At Halley, we are hoping for another launch opportunity tomorrow morning. Payload 2U is ready to go.  The winds are expected to be low again in the morning, so we plan to set up first thing and launch before noon if the weather holds.

The SANAE team have checked out their inflation system and have their first payload just about ready to go.  However, they have 20 knot winds predicted for tomorrow so we don't anticipate a launch from SANAE tomorrow.


Robyn 

From the ice: BARREL Status Update #8

Today we had our first launch from Halley. Payload 2T was launched at 1208 UT. The payload reached float altitude (~38 km) at 1410 UT. So far the balloon looks healthy and the payload is working nominally. A small photo is attached.

As a reminder, you can view the data live at http://soc2.ucsc.edu. The default view is our "live data" screen which may not be your favorite way to view data. But, you can click on the buttons near the top to view a map, or make plots. Quicklook plots of the x-ray count rate will also be posted once per day.  Other plots of mostly housekeeping data can be viewed at: http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/mccarthy/BARREL/2T

We don't plan to launch another payload tomorrow. The SANAE team expects to have a payload ready Sunday and the Halley team has a possible launch opportunity Sunday. I'll provide a weather update in tomorrow's status.

Robyn, 

Hi, this is Alexa. I've taken Robyn's photo and tried to point out some of the different components of our payload that can be seen. The image is below. 

Launch of 2T

This morning we had a successful launch of payload 2T! It was launched from Halley at about 12:00 UT and reached float altitude at ~14:00 UT. Congrats to the Antarctic teams.