The Cat 7 research balloon takes off from the Jackson County Airport.
The seventh Western Carolina University physics research balloon to be launched to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere – Cat 7 – left Cullowhee on Saturday, Feb. 1, and traveled unexpectedly to Tennessee, across Virginia and on to the Atlantic Ocean, where it appeared to be lost at sea.
“The flight was amazing and epic, but we lost our equipment – everything,” said Michele Coker, a senior majoring in geology with a minor in physics.
The hydrogen-filled balloons carry about $1,500 worth of equipment – cameras, tracking devices, sensors and a radiation detector. The data collected helps students learn more about radiation levels and radiation sources in the atmosphere and about weather phenomena such as dark lightning, said Enrique Gomez, assistant professor of physics and astronomy. Dark lightning is an invisible burst of high-energy radiation immediately preceding a flash of lightning.
About a week after the Cat 7 flight, Coker received surprising and good news. Two teachers walking on the beach at the Outer Banks found the balloon’s science box, and a few days later, a Southern Shores resident located part of the radio box. Although the equipment will have to be replaced, Coker is excited about the possibility of being able to retrieve some of the data from it and continuing to investigate what happened with Cat 7.
Take-Off
A team inflates the Cat 7 research balloon at the Jackson County Airport.
Coker and three others gathered before 8 a.m. at the Jackson County Airport to launch Cat 7 on a path that was projected to land it in the High Point and Greensboro area. Four tracking and recovery teams, which often include WCU alumni Price Barryhill, Daniel deCourt, Phillip Jenkins, Kallie Robbins and Dalton Smith, stood ready to help find the payload, which descends by parachute after the balloon pops.
“Normally, if all goes as planned, the chase teams are prepositioned, and I am the only one starting from Cullowhee,” said Coker.
But liftoff was a little later than expected. The crew assisting with the launch was small, which made holding on to the balloon difficult. The craft ascended more slowly than previous balloons but clocked 130 mph at just under 50,000 feet.
“When the balloon got into the upper jetstream, it took off and was soon halfway through Virginia,” said Coker.
Coker met up with chase team volunteers including members of the Catamount Amateur Radio Group and the Haywood County Amateur Radio Club at Cracker Barrel in Statesville. They monitored the balloon’s radio signals, some of which were not functioning properly, and periodic location updates.
Among them was Al Sanders of WCU’s Division of Information Technology, a licensed amateur radio operator who helped design the radio tracking equipment and has assisted with all of the flights since the equipment was added.
“We do it for fun, excitement, competition to find the balloon first, and the technical challenge of getting all the tracking equipment to work properly,” said Sanders. “No two flights are the same, and recovering the balloon once it has landed is always a challenge as the balloons seem to have a great affinity for landing in trees.”
Western Carolina University’s Cat 7 physics research balloon traveled from Cullowhee to the coast of Virginia as indicated on this map, which was developed from the balloon’s reported locations along the flight.
Trees were not the problem for Cat 7. Location updates online showed the balloon traveling northeast above Johnson City, Tenn., and past Danville and Williamsburg in Virginia. The balloon traveled about 560 miles in 6 hours and 41 minutes, reporting a maximum altitude of 90,510 feet over Gloucester, Va. The craft continued east, and the group realized continuing the chase would likely require a boat.
“We watched it go into the Atlantic,” said Coker, who drove home from Statesville with mixed emotions.
Compared to the four earlier WCU research balloons that were recovered (Cat 3 through Cat 6), the Cat 7 flight was the longest by more than two hours. Two of the previous balloons had traveled to South Carolina. A third landed near Charlotte. A fourth was found in Stuart, Va., outside of Fairy Stone State Park. The first two research balloons, which did not have the radio equipment of the subsequent flights, were never recovered.
Coker said she notified the Coast Guard about Cat 7 and reached out to the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, which gave her updates about conditions and accessibility. The equipment continued to transmit location coordinates through the night before falling quiet.
Recovery
Penny Huskey meets with Sgt. Chris Braddy of the Nags Head Police Department after finding the science box of Western Carolina University’s Cat 7 research balloon, which washed up on shore a week after the balloon was lost.
A week later and about 100 miles away from the balloon’s last reported location, two teachers from Poquoson Middle School in Virginia walking on the beach noticed what looked like a cooler held together with duct tape and wires washing up on the beach. Out of an abundance of caution, Penny Huskey and Doreen Nadolny left the package on the beach and had fun letting their imaginations wander. Had someone tried to make a bomb with a Styrofoam cooler and duct tape?
The science box of Cat 7 washed ashore in the town of Nags Head.
The science box of Cat 7 washed ashore in the town of Nags Head.
“We took pictures, and then it began to pour down rain,” said Huskey. The women finished their walk, ducked into a store and called the police to report the odd looking package. Two police cars arrived, and a town of Nags Head officer used binoculars to investigate the suspicious box before retrieving it. Although contact information had washed off, a Catamount Amateur Radio Group sticker was visible on the side.
An officer contacted the radio group using a phone number found online and spoke with Daniel deCourt, a WCU alumnus who had been part of past balloon flight projects. The science box of Western Carolina University’s Cat 7 research balloon washed up on shore in the Town of Nags Head.
“I was stunned that the box had floated from north of Virginia Beach down to the coast of North Carolina,” said deCourt.
Meanwhile, Huskey and Nadolny also researched the amateur radio organization online and called deCourt. They were interested in the research andoffered to return to the police department, retrieve the package and ship it to WCU.
With the salvaged box in their car, the fun continued on the drive back.
“Do you hear a tick-tock, tick-tock?” Huskey said, recounting some of their conversation.
Hugh Rardin reported a drawing of a cat on the side of the radio box he found on the beach that was later identified as part of Cat 7.
Then a few days later, Hugh Rardin in Southern Shores and his golden retriever, T-Bone, found the balloon’s radio box with a blue LED beacon light tangled in a sand dune fence. Rardin saw on the side of the box a sticker for the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute and contacted PARI. He described the box’s sticker, the printed letters VERSO 1 AHB and a “bizarre drawing of a cat,” and PARI connected him with Coker, a past intern at the institute who had told them about the balloon research.
“It is not unusual to find military grade equipment on our beach,” said Rardin, noting the proximity to Naval Station Norfolk. He has found parts of planes, radios, medical equipment and a radio he was advised not to mess with because of possible radiation. “That was a wild find,” said Rardin.
He plans to watch for any other possible content of WCU’s balloon payload. He has a particular interest in the aspect of the research that relates to lightning, noting that he survived being struck by lightning in 2013.
“So this is weird – me finding your experiment,” said Rardin in a message to Coker.
Going Forward
The Cat 7 research balloon ascended to more than 90,000 feet and captured this image of the sun and Earth along the way. (Photo recovered from Cat 7 camera that washed ashore in the Outer Banks a week after the balloon’s flight)
Gomez said the research balloon experiments help teach about basic science as well as how to carry an experiment from conception to design, deployment, retrieval and analysis. As for Cat 7, he has high hopes that the flight’s research data can be retrieved from the salvaged equipment. Previous flights have suggested a peak of radiation at that layer of transition between atmospheric layers, which is expected from cosmic rays, said Gomez.
“Cosmic rays are energetic particles that come from the sun and exploding stars,” said Gomez. “On the surface of the Earth, these particles are not dangerous as we are bombarded by them all the time, but high-latitude intercontinental flight crews have more of a concern over radiation exposure.”
Coker has twice been accepted to present at the National Conference for Undergraduate Research about the project, and she hopes more students will become involved and continue the research after she graduates, which is anticipated this spring. She is gathering equipment and seeking funding and support for a Cat 8 balloon launch.
Each balloon flight is different – unpredictable and exciting, she said.
“It can be stressful with all of the uncertainties once I let go,” said Coker. “But it’s so much fun.”