Join Mission Control

by | Aug 20, 2015 | Weather Balloons

Imagine yourself, sitting in front of three glowing screens. Mission control. You’ve just watched the biggest launch in your life so far, and it was even more exhilarating that you could have ever expected. As soon as it disappeared into the blue, you ran back to mission control to watch what would happen next. Even though it’s long gone from view, it feels like you can see everything. Graphs, charts, feeds of data… and a little marker moving across the map to show your mission’s progress.

Does it kind of feel like you’re at NASA? It’s kind of what we were shooting for.

StratoStar has been taking students to the edge of space for years now, but we’ve just introduced a new tracking software that is changing the game. Now, you can access StratoStar’s mission control on a phone, tablet, or desktop, and watch the progress of your launch from start to finish.

Here are eight things that this software does to put students at the helm of mission control for every launch:

 

  • +  See the flight status of your balloon. That means you can see when it is in flight, when it bursts, and when the parachute is deployed.+  Watch your balloon on the map so you can see how far it has travelled.+  Get an official countdown to launch and track the total mission time from start to finish.+  Track the speed, distance, altitude and more throughout your balloon’s mission.

    + Watch real time graphs chart the time, altitude, temperature, pressure, turbulence and more.

    + See how many people are following the mission and get real time updates from people talking about your launch on Twitter. You’ll even get your own specific mission hashtag.

    +  See the exact coordinates of where your balloon has landed so you can locate and retrieve the payload.

    +  Review your data anytime after the launch. Each launch gets its own private URL, so you’ll be able to access your mission’s data anytime.

 

These are just a few of the highlights of our new weather balloon tracking software, and we’ve loved watching students engage with the software to get a real-time view of the status of their mission. We’ve always been passionate about taking learning to higher levels (no pun intended). That’s why we are so excited to be using StratoStar’s mission control software for all of our future launches.

 

If you would like to experience one of StratoStar’s missions firsthand, we’d love to show you how it works. See for yourself how StratoStar is changing the game when it comes to project-based learning. Contact the team at StratoStar to learn more.