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FIRST HIGH ALTITUDE BALLOON FLIGHT FOR PHYSICISTS
The Sixth Form Physics STEM society launched BerkoHAB, Berkhamsted School’s first High Altitude Balloon flight, from European Astrotech in Westcott near Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire on Thursday 7 May shortly after 1pm.
Members of the Society spent weeks preparing and testing BerkoHAB. On launch day, a group of seven students from the Society accompanied Dr Steve Redman and Mr Dan Hyman to European Astrotech to launch and then recover BerkoHAB. The launch was not without its challenges. There was a sudden, heavy downpour as the balloon was being inflated and the payload, which included a Go-pro camera, electronic circuitry and a tracking device, had to be dried out and reassembled. A successful launch was achieved, however, and the balloon reached a height of 27,522m during its nearly two hour flight. A GPS tracking device was used to recover it from a location off the M11 near Linton, a village south east of Cambridge, where the Jet Stream had transported it. Click here to see a map showing the route of the flight – BerkoHAB flight path. The students hope to obtain various scientific data and some amazing photos (see below) of the Earth from near-space have already been recovered from the BerkoHAB camera!
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