It might be a while before West Ferris Secondary School can recover the payload from the weather balloon the Grade 11 Physics class launched on Monday from the school.
As expected the payload landed in the Kiosk area and even though class instructor Kelly Shulman has a final GPS location, the area’s dense bush has made it tough to find.
Shulman went to the site with several staff to recover the payload but couldn’t see it.
The students outfitted the payload with an audio beacon to make ground retrieval easier.
However Shulman says although she knew the payload’s approximate location, she couldn’t hear the beacon.
She believes the lack of audio may be due to the beacon getting damaged during its decent or it’s pointing toward the ground making it harder to hear or may be submerged by the snow in the bush which would muffle the sound.
The beacon has a life of three to five days meaning by now it may have died off.
However all is not lost in the effort to recover the payload.
Shulman is looking to see if area pilots can keep a watch for the payload just in case it got hung up in a tree.
The payload is easy to spot because it’s a Styrofoam box that’s painted florescent red.
If a pilot spots the payload, Shulman says then with visual confirmation, she and others would return to the area to retrieve it.
In the event the payload is on the ground and is found by a member of the public or a hunter, they’re asked to contact the school.
The school’s name is clearly marked and includes a phone number the finder can call.
The GPS location Shulman had for the payload once it landed is 46.00002, -79.02951.
Monday’s event of the weather balloon was the inaugural launch of the Near Space Program at West Ferris.
The balloon rose 30 kilometres before exploding and sending the payload back to earth.
Shulman introduced the program to enrich science and engineering learning for West Ferris students.
Although the students don’t have any footage from the flight because the payload hasn’t yet been recovered, Shulman says launch day was very interesting for all because there were some pre-launch issues to solve beforehand.
Shulman adds the school is working toward another launch sometime in the spring with another set of students.
She’s talking to interested staff and students about next spring’s launch which she expects will be a larger event.
No date has yet been decided for the next launch but Shulman says there’s already a lot of enthusiasm for it.