Scientists at The TIFR announced the launching of ten balloon flights from E C I L, Hyderabad, under the Indian Space Research Organization.
B Suneel Kumar, chief scientist at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research announced the launching of ten balloon flights from E C I L, Hyderabad, for scientific research over a span of five months from November 15, 2016 to April 30, 2017, under the Department of Atomic Energy and Indian Space Research Organization.
The Stratospheric Balloons carrying instruments for high altitude research will be launched from the Balloon Facility of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at E C I L. The first balloon launch is planned for the 3rd week of November.
The balloons are made of twin Polyethylene plastic films, ranging between 50 meters and 85 meters in diameter, and will be launched between 8 pm and 6.30 am. These Balloons, propelled by Hydrogen, are expected to reach altitudes between 30 and 42 km, and stay there for up to ten hours, depending upon the experiment that would be undertaken. After the experiment, the instruments onboard will the be ejected from the balloon. The instruments will then make a landing with the help of parachutes with large wing spans. Due to the drift and turbulence caused to the Balloons, the instruments will land at coordinates 200 to 350 km away from Hyderabad.
The expected areas of impact of the payload after release from the balloon are: Ranga Reddy, Medak, Mahbubnagar, Nalgonda, Warangal, Khammam, Nizamabad, Karimnagar and Adilabad in Telangana.
Speaking to the media, the chief scientist urged people not to move or even touch the payload, if they find them. He requested them to send the payload to the address attached to it from its place of landing or contact the nearest police station, post office or district authorities. The instruments are packed inside wooden crates and aluminum containers for safety.
As per Kumar, the instruments are extremely volatile and valuable, and scientific data would be lost if they were tampered with. There may be high voltages on some of the instruments, which would be dangerous, but only if the payload is open. Otherwise they were safe and harmless, he said.
On receipt of information from finders, scientists carrying out these experiments will collect the instruments and pay the finder a suitable reward, plus reimbursement for all the expenses of mailing, telephone calls and transport charges (if any) incurred by them.
The finder would be stripped of any rewards if the payload was found to be tampered with, he said.