The Molly Ockett School High Altitude Balloon Launch

Dr Warren Ziegler from USM and Dr Rick Eason of U Maine Orono launched a high altitude balloon from The Molly Ockett School on Friday at about 1:44. It made it up to 112,029 feet altitude, which is 21.21 miles! It flew for 90 miles and landed northeast of Augusta between Freedom Maine and Knox Maine. It was carrying student's experiments, cameras and trackers including a ham radio tracker. I was able to hear the radio beacon from Fryeburg when it was 90 miles away on my handheld ham radio and then 3 seconds later, see the data update on the APRS.FI website using my phone. Bruce Consaul and I were invited to the launch by friend and fellow ham Dr Ziegler, who works for NASA and because we knew what was happening from our own balloon adventures, Bruce and I and Warren took turns telling the students what was happening as they were assembling it. I wasn't quite ready for the launch due to a miscommunication and was scrambling to get into position to film it, so it is a little shaky but at least I got something.