Tabi – PicoHAB

Tabi was the communities first ever attempt at trying to float a balloon and payload around the world. the payload weight of 10.50 grams was a little bit of a concern as most payloads made for this purpose were usually around the 5 gram weight. However this didn’t get me down as this was my first working payload!

The launch went pretty smoothly I was able to let go of the payload without any snags and was able to ensure the solar cells were pretty level. Around a hour into the flight the payload lost GPS connection for some strange reason but after about 40 mins it was able to recover which was a complete relief!

The flight topped out at about 8.5km up which is rather low for an around the world attempt due the chances it will come into contact with weather systems. a more favorable altitude would have been around the 10-12km mark. we lost contact for a few says while she was flying of the middle east however managed to grab a little bit of a status update over Kazakhstan. From there the received data was very little but consistent.

When the flight started to proceed south over China where it was to begin its voyage across the Pacific ocean. This was a tense time as the Pacific is a rather large ocean meaning there was a large chance it could go out to sea and get caught up in circular wind systems and never be seen again..

We were lucky however as the payload seemed to fly in almost a straight line across the ocean. One evening while tracking the payload had made it slightly north of Hawaii we were receiving telemetry updates from the west coast of mainland USA however there appeared to be a few anomalies in the telemetry the altitude was consistently 8.5km however the last few data packets we received we saw the altitude drop to 7.5km and then lost contact with the payload due to it getting dark.

Due to the drop in altitude and then not receiving any further information from the payload for a few days after its last check-in it is suspected that that the payload suffered balloon failure. After traveling a total of 14,497 miles (23,330Km) over the course of around 14 days and splashing down just past Hawaii. This was by far, a formidable first attempt!