Kopernik Observatory launches weather balloon

VESTAL, N.Y. ( WIVT/WGBH ) — Kids at the Kopernik Observatory helped to launch and predict the flight patterns of a weather balloon flying a hundred thousand feet in the air.

The kids predicted the flight pattern of the balloon on computers, so they could follow it, retrieve, and learn from the data.

The project was the culmination of the week long summer camp called Return to the Edge of Space program.

The Executive director of Kopernik Observatory and Science Center, Drew Deskur says it was important to let the kids figure it out and have them take charge and lead the project.

“They learned about the systems, they learned about how to track it, how the cameras work, the fact we have to call FAA and tell them what we’re doing. Hopefully when we get the payload back, we’ll look at the video, we’ll look at the flight data, see how it compares to the predicted software and try to figure out why there was a difference,” said Deskur.

After the launch the balloon traveled south bound and a group of students pin downed the location and retrieved it in a Pennsylvania backyard.

Attached to the balloon was crate with three cameras that were recording video and taking photos.

The payload was then brought back to the observatory to analyze the data.

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