with the area, initiated their hunt. During this time, a TV station from the Fort
Worth-Dallas area had received a report about a ballooning incident and sent a
video crew to find the NSBF people and, if possible acquire some video of the
payload, or anything that looked interesting. That was when a sort of “cat and
mouse” game started between the two groups. To avoid the television reporters
while coordinating the search effort, the NSBF moved to another town nearby.
After two days the Cessna found the payload located among the trees of a fruit
orchard and directed the rest of the team to it.
The NSBF people contacted the landowner asking for authorization to allow
the recovery team to get into the orchard and retrieve the gondola. After access
was granted, they reached the crash point. Despite the heavy impact, the cylindricalshaped payload was found essentially in one piece because during the fall it was
trailing steel suspension cables that kept it vertical instead of tumbling. When it hit
the ground it impacted on the bottom, which was slightly curved. The impact
caused about a six to eight inch deep crater in the soil but no debris thanks to the
pressure vessel, which acted like a shock absorber. The nitrogen contained inside
it was pressurized and blew out the optical window of the instrument enabling the
gas to escape and absorbing some of the impact forces. The sides of the pressure
vessel were made from aluminum and folded up a bit, but they did not fracture or
come apart. All of the scientific systems inside the vessel were of course crushed
by the impact. The recovery team collected the remains of the crash and loaded it
on a trailer, covered the load with canvas, and returned back to the launch base at
Palestine, Texas. Before leaving, the NSBF paid for the damages to the property,
and obtained a signed release of liability from the landowner. By the time the TV
crew figured out what was going on, the NSBF personnel had vanished from the
scene. What would be turned into a nightmare of bad press for the agency turned
into a short story in the evening news for a day or two. Then, nothing more was
heard or seen of the incident.
But that was not the end of the history as far as NASA or NSBF was concerned.
Initially the technicians were puzzled about why the payload had been released
from the parachute. The electronic systems recovered were examined, and it was
obvious from looking at the circuit boards that large electrical currents had flowed
through them. The transistors and integrated circuits were opened and analyzed in
NASA laboratories. Experts determined that lightning had not directly struck the
suspension system, but induced currents had caused the damage.
It was decided a bolt of lightning had traveled up from the clouds close enough
to generate an electromagnetic pulse in the flight electronics and this caused several simultaneous events. First, the parachute was released from the balloon.
Second, motors were activated that withdrew the safety pins from the parachute/
payload release system (normally used to separate them once on the ground, to
avoid the gondola being dragged across the ground) and third, the explosive cutter
304 Appendix 3: Interesting Stories
Worth-Dallas area had received a report about a ballooning incident and sent a
video crew to find the NSBF people and, if possible acquire some video of the
payload, or anything that looked interesting. That was when a sort of “cat and
mouse” game started between the two groups. To avoid the television reporters
while coordinating the search effort, the NSBF moved to another town nearby.
After two days the Cessna found the payload located among the trees of a fruit
orchard and directed the rest of the team to it.
The NSBF people contacted the landowner asking for authorization to allow
the recovery team to get into the orchard and retrieve the gondola. After access
was granted, they reached the crash point. Despite the heavy impact, the cylindricalshaped payload was found essentially in one piece because during the fall it was
trailing steel suspension cables that kept it vertical instead of tumbling. When it hit
the ground it impacted on the bottom, which was slightly curved. The impact
caused about a six to eight inch deep crater in the soil but no debris thanks to the
pressure vessel, which acted like a shock absorber. The nitrogen contained inside
it was pressurized and blew out the optical window of the instrument enabling the
gas to escape and absorbing some of the impact forces. The sides of the pressure
vessel were made from aluminum and folded up a bit, but they did not fracture or
come apart. All of the scientific systems inside the vessel were of course crushed
by the impact. The recovery team collected the remains of the crash and loaded it
on a trailer, covered the load with canvas, and returned back to the launch base at
Palestine, Texas. Before leaving, the NSBF paid for the damages to the property,
and obtained a signed release of liability from the landowner. By the time the TV
crew figured out what was going on, the NSBF personnel had vanished from the
scene. What would be turned into a nightmare of bad press for the agency turned
into a short story in the evening news for a day or two. Then, nothing more was
heard or seen of the incident.
But that was not the end of the history as far as NASA or NSBF was concerned.
Initially the technicians were puzzled about why the payload had been released
from the parachute. The electronic systems recovered were examined, and it was
obvious from looking at the circuit boards that large electrical currents had flowed
through them. The transistors and integrated circuits were opened and analyzed in
NASA laboratories. Experts determined that lightning had not directly struck the
suspension system, but induced currents had caused the damage.
It was decided a bolt of lightning had traveled up from the clouds close enough
to generate an electromagnetic pulse in the flight electronics and this caused several simultaneous events. First, the parachute was released from the balloon.
Second, motors were activated that withdrew the safety pins from the parachute/
payload release system (normally used to separate them once on the ground, to
avoid the gondola being dragged across the ground) and third, the explosive cutter
304 Appendix 3: Interesting Stories