<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14px; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><div>Our local club did a HAB launch today that went horribly wrong. Check out the track of AB0OO-11 to see what I mean. After 12 hours aloft, we are still getting good positional data from the balloon, but we have no control over it.</div><div>We ran out of fill gas and only had about 3.5 pounds of lift on a 3 pound payload. Instead of just aborting, we launched anyway. The balloon averaged about 100 feet per minute of lift, and after 7 hours it had only made it to 60k feet. For the last 4 hours, it's been gradually drifting in circles, getting lower and lower. We're going to lose it somewhere over south western North Carolina, and we'll probably never see it again.</div><div>This balloon was flying the new Byonics MT-400 tracker, which is still going strong with a Sparkfun >60k GPS (it's been flight tested by us to 93k) on 6 Energizer Lithium Ultra batteries.. Unfortunately, I didn't include the additional battery pack, relay, and wiring needed for a nichrome cutdown, so instead of being able to abort the flight at the time of our choosing, it continues to drift aimlessly over the Carolina's, along with 2 HD video cameras.</div><div><br></div><div>If anyone happens across what will probably be a still-inflated balloon, I'd really like the memory cards out of the cameras…</div><div><br></div><div>John Gorkos</div><div>AB0OO</div><div><br></div><br></body></html>