Anacapa School Students Plan ‘Space’ Mission
High school to launch high altitude balloon experiment into near space
May 12, 2011 — Santa Barbara, Calif.
While NASA may be winding down its Space Shuttle program, Anacapa School is starting up its own space program in Downtown Santa Barbara. Four Anacapa School students plan to spend a weekend releasing Anacapa’s Amateur High Altitude Balloon 1 (AAHAB-1) high into the skies above the Central Coast to touch the edges of space and return home safely.
The project is the brain-child of the Anacapa Near Space Exploration Club, founded by students Julio Bernal, Aubrey Cazabat, Christian Eckert and Connor Proctor along with faculty advisor Levi Maaia. The group expects its seven-foot wide balloon with attached payload to reach an altitude of 100,000 feet looking down on nearly 99 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere below it. From that height the craft will have a view as far as 400 miles in all directions under a black, near space sky.
The students have been planning this mission since the fall and hope to gather extensive data about local weather patterns and to bring back stunning photos of Earth’s curved surface below the black skies of near space.
“This isn’t just a weather balloon,” said Anacapa senior Connor Proctor. “AAHAB-1 is a sophisticated near space probe, outfitted with atmospheric and radiation sensors, as well as a high-definition camera. Our launch vehicle will fly more than twice as high as a commercial jet.”
Their probe had to be built to withstand the extreme environment of near space, including temperatures nearing -50°F and wind speeds in excess of hurricane forces.
“I was surprised just how brutal the conditions would be,” said senior Aubrey Cazabat after returning from a trip to the National Weather Service offices in Oxnard. “We have the challenge of building a capsule that is both extremely rugged and extremely light weight.”
The launch, weather permitting, is scheduled to take place Saturday May 21, from one of several predetermined launch sites. The group will post data, including photos from the probe, on the Anacapa School’s Web site: www.anacapaschool.org.
Anacapa School is an independent, co-educational, WASC–accredited, college preparatory day school for junior high and high school students in grades 7-12. Founded in 1981 by Headmaster Gordon Sichi, Anacapa enjoys the best student-teacher ratio of any school, public or private, in Santa Barbara at its historic campus located in the heart of the Santa Barbara civic center.
Contact:
Levi C. Maaia, Faculty Advisor
805-617-0360 • levi@anacapaschool.org
www.anacapaschool.org