NSL-70

NSL-70 was flown the afternoon of May 10, 2019 from the front lawn of Cardinal Gibbons High School in western Raleigh. Tim W's payload consisted of:

• AP510 APRS tracker

• ?? GRMS SMS backup tracker

• Mobius type camera

• 808 clone camera

• ?? data logger with external temperature probe

...all within a 26cm foam cube. A carbon fiber rod pierced the cube and held a signage on one side (within view of the two cameras) and a balsa fin on the other.

Further up the bridle from the payload were a series of signed school pennant flags, a 360-degree camera, and a 1m Rocketman parachute.

The flight was carried aloft on a Kaymont 600g cell with H₂.

This flight had been advertised to the student body and was performed at the end of day. Students waiting for car pool witnessed the inflation and launch. It was rather breezy at the time, but thankfully this did not affect events -- Perhaps a bit more lifting gas was added then desired, but it is hard to measure buoyancy in a breeze.

The flight track was predicted to take it east-northeast towards Rocky Mount, NC. After launch, the chase crew Tim, Paul L., students, and teacher departed the school and headed for the projected landing area to the east.

The payload burst at 30km over Zebulon, NC and drifted down towards Nashville, NC. The chase crew positioned themselves in the landing area -- pausing at different points as the predicted landing solution evolved. In the final minute of flight, the chase crew was about 1km away when the students spotted the payload under parachute. The team arrived at the landing area moments later to discover that the payload was being dutifully looked-after by a dog.

Later review of the video, showed that the pup had witnessed the landing from a neighbor's yard and had cautiously wondered over to investigate. Good boy!