Ground Control to Callanan: Cougar IV Takes Off
Students at Callanan Middle School launch Cougar IV, a weather balloon experiment conducted by students.
Cougar IV lifted off right on schedule at 10:00 this morning at Callanan Middle School. Carrying a payload of atmospheric instruments and two GoPro cameras, the weather balloon quickly rose out of sight on its vertical voyage into the upper reaches of the atmosphere.
Science teacher/mission director Astro, oops, make that ANSON Bonte and his earthbound crew of ten curious 7th and 8th graders followed their bulbous craft as far as their naked eyes and rubber necks would allow before returning to class to await its return to earth. Upon receipt of that signal from Cougar IV’s GPS tracking device Bonte would hop into a four-wheeled recovery vehicle and fetch the black box-like trove of data.
Three previous launches were part of Callanan’s affiliation with Science Bound, a program that steers students toward STEM career training at Iowa State University. But this year Bonte cut those ties so he could open up the project to any students at Callanan who were interested.
“The result of that is that we have a real cross-section of the student body involved this time,” he said just before launch. The crew has been meeting for a couple of hours after school on Thursdays all semester to prepare for this morning’s flight. Some of them plan to use flight data as the basis for an entry into the district science fair later in the winter. Last December the flight of Cougar III led to a winning project at the state level. It’s no wonder.
Students get hands-on experience in calibrating and testing equipment. They formulate projections. They notify the FAA and get flight clearance. They alert local media. It’s a high and wide-ranging experience for them.
Theo Auge is an 8th grader with a scientific bent. He watched previous launches (the whole school turns out and provides cheers that give the balloons an extra boost at liftoff) and knew that he wanted to get involved. “I’ve always been interested in astronomy,” he said after C-IV had risen out of sight. “Yeah, I think it would be cool to be an astronaut.”
Seventh grader Anna Blobaum enjoyed making calls around the community to spread the word about the mission in advance of launch day. “We have high hopes,” she said, the understatement of the day.
Fueled by helium, Cougar IV will quickly climb to an altitude of approximately 90,000 feet before bursting and returning to earth under the gentle glide of a Callanan-colored (orange and blue) drag parachute. From launch to landing the mission will last about ninety minutes. Based on preflight models that accounted for everything from the unseasonal weather at the launch site to El Nino and prevailing jet stream paths, Bonte and crew were predicting that their payload would be waiting for them somewhere in the Rathbun area. Let’s hope there’s no splashdown in the lake of that name!
So much detail of the balloon’s journey will be revealed in numbers upon retrieval of the gear. But there’s no way of measuring how far the students’ own imaginations will take them. Their flights of fancy have just begun.
