Staff
Stephanie Soffa
Stephanie recently graduated with an AEM Degree from the UMN Aerospace Department. She
was the flight director for the test flights and was in charge of integrating
Balloon
Track, which predicts the landing zone based on winds aloft data and also provides
real time tracking of the balloon, into the project. Stephanie also assisted Greg with the
electrical implementation and maintained the project web site.
Kevin Sweeney
Kevin was a graduate student in the UMN Aerospace Department studying aerospace systems
and controls. He was in charge of defining procedures for all phases of the project as
well as working on the mechanical design. Kevin served as both the launch
and recovery directors for the testing phase. He also developed the program
web site.
Volunteers
Jessie Hakes
Jessie, a student from the College of St. Catherine, helped with
L03 on the launch and recovery teams.
She also took pictures throughout both of these processes.
Dave Hultman
Dave assisted BallonSat by constructing various components for the launch and recovery
systems. This includes the helium fill system as well as the recovery data
receiver/transmitter box. He also assisted in
T01 and
T02 as well as
L01 and
L02.
Ryan Shea (center)
Ryan Shea, from Augsburg, helped out with flight and recovery for
L05.
Steve Zaffke
Steve Zaffke, from Augsburg, helped out with launch and recovery for
L05.
Andrew Feit
Andrew helped with
L04 on the launch team
and also took pictures during the recovery.
Jennifer Halsted
Jennifer assisted in both
T01 and
T02 as well as
L04 by taking pictures and video. She also supplied
both the digital and video camera for all the flights up to L04.
Ryan Nordell
Ryan helped with
T02 and several of
the range and radio direction finding tests .
Chris Sanden
Chris helped on both the launch and recovery team for each of the flights up to L04.
On flight
L04 he was the recovery director.
For the later flights Chris worked with the helium filling system during the launch.
Matthew Stegmeir
Matt was on both the launch and recovery teams for both
L01 and
L04.
Matt Thomasson
Matt was on both the launch and flight teams for
L03 and
L05. During the later
flight, Matt worked with the helium filling system and the actual launch release of the balloon.
Web site maintained by
Adam Thoreen
Last updated: October 1, 2004