How StratoSAT Works
StratoSAT - How It Works
Flight Prediction
Conducting a flight prediction will show you where StratoSAT will land. The prediction software uses National Weather service data based on weather balloon soundings, such as launch location, ascent rate, decent rate, and burst altitude, to calculate a landing location.
StratoSAT has landed within 300 ft of the predicted landing zone. The software is often accurate, but the biggest advantage it gives you is the ability to know where StratoSAT will land and reduce your risk of a hazardous landing. For example if a prediction is generated and the landing point is a lake or city, you can move your launch site or terminate the flight early to avoid these hazards.
Launch
StratoSAT has been launched in all weather conductions, day and night. A high-altitude balloon is filled with Helium or Hydrogen and the payload train and parachute are attached to the balloon.
A typical flight takes 2 hours and the StratoSAT will reach altitudes of 75K ft – 120K ft and will reach speeds of more than Mach 1 or faster than the speed of sound. As the air density increases the parachute will slow the StratoSAT down to 900 ft/minute.
Tracking and Live Data
Tracking StratoSAT is the same as following your car’s GPS system to a restaurant. GPS data and the data from the experiments on board StratoSAT are sent down to an antenna on the chase vehicle and the antenna at Mission Control.
Live data from experiments on board is also sent down to be recorded and viewed on your computer hard drive in the chase vehicle or at Mission Control. Trending of your data is available as the StratoSAT is in flight transmitting data from the experiments. With special equipment live video and pictures can also be sent back to earth.
Recovery
StratoSAT will descend on a parachute and the chase team will be monitoring it’s location on the computer and watch as it gracefully descends to the ground. If the chase team is not close enough to see StratoSAT land, the tracking software and antenna can pick up StratoSAT location on the ground up to 5 miles, allowing for the team to walk out to the landing zone to recover StratoSAT and it’s payload.
After retrieving StatoSAT it will be powered down and placed in the chase vehicle, to be launched again.
StratoSAT technology has been launched without the loss of one system from 2003 to 2007.
Data Analysis
All data from the flight is ready to be analyzed whether the payload was recovered intact or if it was destroyed during flight, because the data was transmitted live to the ground during the flight.
Raw data written is in tab delineated text files and is easily importable to Excel or other data management programs for analysis.
