​​The first mission of the Boonville Space Program was a significant milestone, considering we really had no idea what we were doing at the time.  None of us had ever sent anything to space but it was a goal we were determined to accomplish.  

 

For our first mission, we had four very simple goals.

 

Mission 1 Goals

 

1. Send a camera and a data collection device into the upper atmosphere via weather balloon.

2. Capture high-definition video.

3. Record internal and external temperature data.

4. Recover the craft after landing.

 

After many months of researching, planning, designing and experimenting, we constructed our first craft out of a small styrofoam cooler.  After several prototype designs, the cooler was chosen for its insulation and lightweight construction.  Reinforced with a healthy layer of Gorilla Tape, the capsule housed a weatherproof GoPro camera, a Vernier Lab Pro data logger with two temperature probes, and a Spot Messenger GPS tracker. With so many variables and so many unknowns, we axiously set a launch date for October 29, 2011.

Arriving before dawn that morning, we gathered our spacecraft and our gear and set to work with inflating our giant weather balloon.  After thoroughly preparing and testing our data collection equipment, camera and GPS tracking device, we attached our craft to the balloon and sealed it.  Being our first launch, we had to estimate the correct amount of helium to acheive our desired lift.  We did not know it at the time, but this launch would have the fastest ascent rate and shortest total flight time (two closely related factors) of our first four missions.

 

At 7:44 am we were ready for launch.  The balloon had been inflated to approximately 7 feet in diameter and was producing a significant amount of lift.  Our craft was ready to go to space.

 

Upon releasing the balloon, it successfully ascended up into the clear morning sky.  We watched as our balloon and capsule came into contact with the light of sunrise, and followed it until we lost sight of it completely.  Now it was time to track it.

 

The craft was sending its GPS coordinates every 10 minutes to a web page using a SPOT Messenger device.  The craft was traveling southeast, crossing from southern Mendocino County into the mountains of northern Sonoma County. 

 

As expected, we lost communication with the craft as it rose past the point where the GPS could send its signal, approximately 60,000 feet. We predicted that this would happen, but it was still unnerving not knowing where our craft was.  About an hour and a half after launch, we began receiving signals from the craft again as it descended into the mountains near Lake Sonoma.  At 9:11 am, the craft began repeating GPS coordinates, signifying that it had landed.

 

Instructors Bagnell and Snyder set out to recover the balloon at about 10 o'clock that morning, prepared to hike the mile and a half off of a county road to where the craft appeared to be sitting in a clearing.  From the map it did not seem like the two would have too much trouble locating the craft.  Until the craft began moving again.

 

Tracking the craft on a smartphone as it mysteriously moved, it became obvious that someone had picked up the craft only minutes after it had landed.  The GPS coordinates indicated that the craft was moving along a road, traveling for several miles before coming to rest.  The intrepid math and science instructor set out in a new direction to see who had captured the spacecraft.  

 

After about a half mile of hiking down a remote unmarked dirt road the pair were met by three armed men in a jeep, donned in full camoflauge.  It could have been a precarious situation for the two spacecraft hunters, who were armed only with a camera and a smartphone.  Luckily, these three men were only interested in hunting pigs- and the only thing that they had successfully captured that morning was our spacecraft!

 

After exchanging handshakes, a few laughs and a spacecraft, the two happy teachers anxiously pulled open the craft and began the process of retrieving the imagery and data.

 

​The waterproof casing of the camera proved difficult to open, as it had been sealed shut by the vacuum of space.  The camera had successfully captured mind-blowing video of the Sonoma and Mendocino coast- from Cape Mendocino to San Francisco- from altitudes of up to 70,000 feet.   In the video, Earth's atmosphere is visible as a thin blue outline against the blackness of space.  Also present was invaluable temperature data showing that our craft survived temperatures of up to -60 degrees Celsius.  Also from our temperature data we could tell that the craft had traveled through the tropopause (the boundary between the troposhere and the stratosphere) and into the lower stratosphere!

 

It took the balloon one hour and 5 minutes to reach its peak altitude where the balloon popped and it began its descent back to Earth.  The craft had been ascending at approximately 1000 feet per minute.

 

With all goals for Mission 1 accomplished, it was time to set goals for Mission 2.

 

 

Mission 1 Stats

 

Horizontal Distance Traveled: 27.1 miles SSW

 

Peak Altitude: Approximately 72,000 feet

 

Total Flight Time: 1 hour 43 minutes