Poster Presentation

Simulating Trajectories of Floating Stratospheric Balloons in Support of 2023 and 2024 Eclipse Ballooning Missions

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Abstract

We have modified a free-balloon trajectory prediction script, originally written by balloonists at the University of Colorado Boulder for use with vented latex weather balloon flights, to allow for open-duration "float" flight segments. This work was motivated by the "engineering" (AKA "video-streaming") side of the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP), which is considering floating weather balloons to make gravity wave oscillations easier to identify and also to help stabilize the camera platform to assist in taking high-quality video and/or photos. When the simulation program is run, it searches for weather data in a public database from the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The code uses this data to create a choice of files displaying the predicted flight trajectory. The script allows the user to dictate the ascent profile (typically at a constant ascent rate), the vent rate (that is - the rate at which the ascent is slowed), the duration of the float state (or slow ascent or slow descent), the termination condition (typically either a time or a target altitude), and the parachute descent profile (at rate that is realistic, but highly non-linear in time). The script may be used to predict trajectories up to 180 hours into the future. Trajectories can also be run using historical data, such as that from Oct. 14 and Apr. 8 (the 2 upcoming eclipse dates), up to 6 years into the past. This prediction tool will be useful for eclipse teams as they select what part of the country to travel to, based in part on trajectories from past years, and also as they decide exactly where to launch from, based on the weather predictions in the days just prior to each eclipse.

Keywords: stratospheric ballooning, eclipse ballooning, float, trajectory prediction, flight prediction

How to Cite:

Omweri, A., Larson, S. & Flaten, J., (2022) “Simulating Trajectories of Floating Stratospheric Balloons in Support of 2023 and 2024 Eclipse Ballooning Missions”, Academic High Altitude Conference 2022(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/ahac.15636