Biggest balloon
The biggest balloon, with the heaviest payload sent aloft by the Project Ghost atmospheric research centre at Christchurch Airport will be released early next month. The polyester film balloon which is 70ft in diameter, will carry a dummy payload of 2001 b to a height of 15 miles. It will be launched to test the reliability of the balloon and its components. According to Mr A. B. Rickel, the superintendent of the research unit, two identical balloons will be tested. “In the meantime the receiving and transmitting equipment which will form the payload is being designed and made at our headquarters in Boulder,
Colorado,” he said yesterday. Eventually the balloon used will carry a number of small instrument packs which are to be released over the ocean. Each pack will parachute down relaying scientific data to the mother pack with the balloon, which in turn will relay this information by satellite to tracking stations in the Southern Hemisphere. The balloon will provide a 15-miie-high atmospheric profile which has not been possible before. As it is estimated that it could cost slm a year to keep a weather ship on ocean station, the success of such a project might save a great deal.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume CX, Issue 32462, 24 November 1970, Page 16
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204Biggest balloon Press, Volume CX, Issue 32462, 24 November 1970, Page 16
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