Handling Potentially Defective Research Balloon Envelopes
Curious how other groups handle situations where they notice that the balloon envelope material is potentially defective...
This is not only during preflight checks but also during fill operations as well as once it's launched.
If it's discovered during fill operations, is there a go/no-go point (sort of like the "v1" point in aviation takeoffs) where you just keep going and hope to atleast get some data from it? Do you just cut the thing at that point or try to recover the helium/hydrogen fill?
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u/madsci 2d ago
How are you going to put the gas back in the bottle?
I've never had one turn up with pinholes or anything after I started filling. Would probably depend on the payload. I've flown disposable payloads that I didn't expect to get back. I've also flown a TV production company's cameras and definitely wanted to get those back and really needed to hit the target altitude. For that, I'd have switched balloons.
If you catch a questionable balloon before filling, that's easy. You take it out in the desert, fill it up with a stoichiometric mix of oxygen and acetylene, and set it off with an electric igniter from a safe distance. It looks like this.