Homemade Weather Balloon Reaches Stratosphere

Backyard scientists, Steve Sapienza and Rob Marks, sent a homemade weather balloon up into the stratosphere. This weather balloon carried a payload, which was basically a bright-orange styrofoam cooler padded with some sound-proof foam. The payload contained a GPS and video camera, with a goal of capturing video 100,000 feet into the atmosphere. After testing and re-testing their equipment, they launched the weather balloon and reached their goal. Below is a video of the launch on September 27th.

The balloon reached about 19 miles up into the atmosphere before popping and sailing back down to Florida. Those interested can check out Our journey to the stratosphere on Facebook for more pictures and information about the launch.