Missions
On May 28, 2023 members of WV BEAR participated in a test flight with the University of Maryland. Testing out several procedures, technologies, and gaining valuable flight experience. Team members Marcos Kniska, Carmelo Kniska, Lucas Kniska, Michael Farha, and Natalie Fout spent 5 days at the University of Maryland participating in the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project Workshop. The workshop concluded with two successful high altitude balloon flights.
Test Flight 0
August 19, 2023 from Jackson's Mill WV ... Failed Flight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVJ3QGJEkM
Our objectives for the test flight were to:
Test vent subsystem to float at 80,000 feet
Test Iridium modems to be later used for small sat mission
Test remote cutdown subsystem
Test real-time video streaming over 5.8 GHZ above 10k feet
Test ground system to be able to command flight system, track flight system, and ingest video stream from flight system.
Morning launch procedures went very well. Ground station setup and testing was quite successful, operational procedures were well defined, payload testing on the ground was successful. Just after liftoff, roughly 3 seconds into the flight the main flight line that connects payloads to the balloon broke in half and the flight line and payloads crashed back to surface of the Earth while the the balloon, and just the balloon continued on its journey.
Test Flight 1
October 1, 2023
Test Flight 2
Flight Day: October 01, 2023
Flight Location: Jackson Mill WV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGt-0puDorE
Flight went very well, maintained video communications all up through 94,000 feet in altitude as well as during descent. Spot tracker and Iridium modem and APRS payload provided excellent tracking data during the entire flight up through recovery.
Visit our you tube channel to watch flight (video)
WJ1: October 14, 2023 Eclipse Mission
Flight location was Odessa Texas and was quite a success!
Watch video of the flight on you tube (video)
Test Flight March 22, 2024
Team is preparing for April 2024 Eclipse launch with one more test flight. During launch procedures and filling of the balloon, we lost the balloon as it slipped off the safety line. We entered into a safe hold, readied another balloon, and flew.
WJ2 - April 2024 Solar Eclipse Mission
Waterford Pennsylvania was the launch site and mission success
2024 - 2025 Flight Campaigns
October 2024 - William Jackson (WJ 0b0111)
During 2023-2024 flight campaigns we had 4 test flights along with 2 NASA missions, resulting in 6 total missions. To kick off our 2024-2025 flight campaign we continue naming our missions after William "Bill" Jackson and begin the numbering with 7. So our first flight during this campaign shall have the call sign "WJ 0b0111" (0b indicates binary numbers and 0111 is binary for decimal number 7)
Mission Date:
Mission Location:
Mission Objectives:
Float at 80,000 feet in altitude
Receive real-time telemetry stream of both video and science
Prove commanding