Another launch

Well we were able to get another balloon off the ground. We have been waiting for 2 days since its been super cold and super windy. The wind finally died down enough for us to do it today. Though it has been a trying day to say the least but thankfully I have way too much patience for one person and am able to hold my tongue when I need to. Smile and nod! I've been holding the balloon the last couple of launches which I like, it makes me feel important. I like letting it go and watching it float up and drag the instruments with it.

I suppose I should explain a balloon launch a little more since that's the primary reason I'm here. Most of the balloons we send up are carrying an ozonesonde with it. This sonde measures the ozone as it floats up as well as the temperature, pressure and relative humidity. The balloons usually go up to about 30 km into the atmosphere and we get a nice profile of the ozone. We are then able to tell where the ozone hole is starting, how deep it is, etc. I'll get into the science of everything later but here are some pictures of a normal launch.
First we spread out the inlet tube and Leslie gets into position to fill the balloon with helium. Mahesh helps her while Terry and I are at the other end with the balloon.
Next Mahesh turns on the helium and Leslie fills the balloon with enough helium to lift the "weigh off" (its a big hook with weights on it) up off the ground. This is just enough helium to lift the instrument and balloon up into the sky.
After it has enough helium, Terry ties off the inlet tube. I have the all important job of holding the balloon. Yep that's me...pretty beastly I know.
Then Leslie and Terry tie on the ozonesonde to the balloon and we spread out the rest of it in a line...
Then "Let go!" and the balloon is off...
and it floats up...
and away. All these pictures are courtesy of Willem Buitendyk who was watching our August 27th launch and was kind of enough to give us copies of his pictures. (Thanks!)

The balloons are so long because as it floats higher, the gas inside expands with the decreasing pressure. This allows enough room for expansion to get the balloon up into the stratosphere. Once it goes up to where the gas expands to fill the entire balloon, it pops and comes plummeting back to earth where it crashes and burns in a huge fire ball of flame... hehe just kidding, it just falls to the ground and stays there. Then we just wait for it to go up and back down and collect the data it sends back to us on the trip. These are small balloons compared to the ones we send up with the larger instruments. We have 5 large instruments to launch this year but it hasn't been calm enough to do those yet. I will let you know when we get one off the ground. Stay tuned for more exciting balloon launching stories!!