The Grade 12 physics class at West Ferris Secondary is now analyzing all the data the payload from its weather balloon gathered earlier this month.
Their teacher Kelly Shulman says the students will go through separate parts of the data and then present their findings in a report.
Shulman says except for a shift in one of the cameras during the experiment everything was flawless.
She says when the balloon exploded at 30 kilometres, one of the payload cameras shifted during the explosion so it wasn’t able to effectively capture images of the descent.
However, she says the other onboard cameras provided sufficient coverage of the action.
Shulman says the still camera took stunning images throughout the flight and those images are available for public viewing at Shulman.x10host.com
As for the onboard experiments, the students will examine how well a weather vane worked at keeping the weather balloon stabilized when it rose from the West Ferris Secondary field two weeks ago.
The payload also recorded temperatures and one analysis will be going through those temperatures numbers to determine the height of the ozone layer.
Another analysis is to see how high the balloon was when it captured all of North Bay on the onboard cameras.
There will also be an analysis of solar panels on the payload to see where it’s best to place the panels on future flights.
This latest launch had the panels on the sides and top.
Shulman says the findings of the students will be used on future missions to help with future design decisions.
She adds the goal is to have a balloon launch every spring.