Introduction
Pico-9 was launched the morning Pico-8 started up for the fist day since launch. We reverted back to the design from Pico-7 which we knew worked.
The weather seemed perfect: clear blue sky and only a light wind. The launch preparation went smoothly right up until we launched.
The launch
Upon releasing the balloon, the balloon initially rose off the ground to around 30m. It then seemed to get caught by a gust of wind and stop rising. It narrowly avoided some nearby houses and trees before disappearing from view.
Recovery
The balloon managed to complete a transmission cycle after we launched it before then falling silent. After walking around some fields in the general direction it went in, we spotted the glint of a foil balloon from the top of a tree. It had traveled a distance of 240m before getting caught right at the top of a tall oak tree.
After walking around underneath the tree to try and get a visual on the actual tracker, we discovered evidence of the unfortunate death of the tracker.
It was now clear why the tracker had stopped transmitting, and seemed likely that the last transmission was due to the supercapacitor.
After waiting around for a few more minutes, the balloon was caught in another gust of wind which managed to remove it from the tree. Luckily it floated down towards the ground and, after a frantic chase across the field, we managed to recover the tracker before it got stuck in another tree. Unfortunately, the balloon itself was too high to reach.
The Damage
As can be expected, the cells didn’t stand a chance against the tree and some had been completely snapped off. The force from the balloon had also bent the central PCB in the solar system.
The tracker itself was in full working condition and we ended up using it for our next launch.
Conclusion
It’s unclear whether we under-filled the balloon and somehow managed to mess up the free lift measurements or if it was simply down to the turbulence, but we’ll probably avoid launching in such “windy” conditions again.