Here is a photo journal of what I do here on the atoll ... well what I do for work here on the atoll. I know that my family and non-atmopsheric science friends have no idea what I am doing out here ... and even many of my academic friends may have never launched a balloon, so here is:
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| First stop ... the terminal for breakfast! |
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| Oh YUM! Bacon Egg and Cheese sandwich ... oh and some figure plotting to go with it. |
First things first ... call the air traffic control tower and get approval to launch the balloon ... they will delay you if there is a flight about to leave/land. Whey they say "that is approved" then you are good to go! Get out the sonde and launch.
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| Radiosonde in the package. |
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| Radiosonde package open ... there it is! |
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| Attach the radiosonde to the machine that configures it (not sure what it is called) |
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| First recondition the sensor ... burn off anything on the sensor and get it ready to launch. |
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| Start the GAUS program that records the data from the sonde. |
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| Attach the battery to the sonde ... half the sonde is the power supply. |
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| Make sure that the computer registers the radiofrequency of the sonde |
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| Make sure all the sensors are working! |
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| Aspirate the sensor and make sure sensors are working. |
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| Radiosonde and Aspirator |
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| Check to make sure the radiosonde can see satellites |
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| Helium tanks for filling the balloon |
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| Turning on the helium tank |
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| Open the valve and put 30 cub. feet in the balloon |
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| Here is the balloon in the package. |
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| Out of the package, no helium. |
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| Filling the balloon |
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| More helium. |
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| Full balloon ... it only gets bigger as it rises! |
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| Adding the zip tie to keep the helium in the balloon. |
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| Zip tie! |
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| Attach the radiosonde to the balloon with another zip tie. |
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| Getting ready to launch! |
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| Here we go ... |
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| Its rising! |
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| YAY! |
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| Taking in some data ... temperature, humidity, windspeed and direction :) |
So thats it! The whole balloon launching process in just a few short steps ... by the end of my time here it only took me about 5 min ... my first day here I never would have imagined it could be so easy, but it really was :)
OH and due to the crappy internet here ... this post has taken me DAYS to get ready. Man what a pain.
that's awesome!! now that commercial i posted on your facebook really does remind me of you!
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to post all these pictures. Now I really know what you have been doing there!
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