Touching Space

Carthage student conducts high altitude balloon research

Physics major Stephanie Finnvik, '12, was one of six students in the state selected to participate in the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium's 2010 Elijah High Altitude Balloon Research Program this summer.

Top: A video made by Stephanie Finnvik, '12, and the other members of the 2010 Elijah Payload Team, showing the flight their payload took from Mount Horeb, Wis., to near-space, and back down to Earth, landing in a cornfield near Milton.
Above: Stephanie Finnvik (holding balloon) and other members of the 2010 Elijah team get ready to launch their high altitude ballooning experiment.

Every year, the program invites students from WSGC member institutions to propose, design and build scientific payloads for launch to the near-space environment aboard a high altitude balloon. Stephanie and her partner devised a method for monitoring upper atmospheric mercury concentrations.

Their work was honored at a poster competition at WSGC's annual conference in August. Stephanie was then invited to present her research at the regional Space Grant Conference in Minnesota in September, where she placed in the top 10 of 50 student competitors, said physics professor Kevin Crosby, chair of the Division of Natural Sciences at Carthage.

"The theme of the conference was 'Design, Build, Fly,' " Stephanie said. "I was asked to be part of a panel focusing on student-built rocketry and balloon projects. I gave a presentation about what we did and then participated in the Q&A, where all of the attendees asked questions."

In November Stephanie traveled to Washington University in St. Louis to give a presentation on high altitude ballooning at the 2010 Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science, held Nov. 12-14 by the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science. Stephanie was joined by several other Carthage students giving both oral and poster presentations.

From Politics to Space: Finding New Passions

Stephanie, a junior from Brooklyn Park, Minn., originally came to Carthage to study international political economy. After taking a class with Prof. Crosby, she changed her focus to science. She's now a double-major in physics and Spanish, and hopes to participate in Carthage's dual-degree program in engineering. "I'm hoping to do aerospace engineering," she said.

Stephanie flew aboard NASA's Weightless Wonder as part of Carthage's Microgravity Team.

She is a member of Carthage's Microgravity Team, and in Spring 2010, conducted research aboard NASA's Weightless Wonder microgravity aircraft. "I hated physics in high school," she said, laughing. "But after flying on the zero gravity plane, all I want to do is touch space."

High altitude ballooning is her latest passion.

"I have found a new fascination with ballooning," she said. "You get to say you went to space, technically. It's becoming a more popular method of doing research, mostly because it's not nearly as expensive as sending up a satellite or some other heavier object."

The Experiment: Studying the Stratosphere

Stephanie was selected for Elijah's 2010 Payload Team, a group of six students charged with finding, and then conducting, research projects to investigate the phenomena of near-space.

The students spent 10 weeks at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, where they worked with Dr. William Farrow. They tackled three different experiments: Two students studied the efficiency of solar panels in various altitudes. Two more studied static charge differences by altitude. Stephanie and her partner investigated mercury concentration in the atmosphere. They built a device that used a motor and vacuum to draw air through gold amalgamation traps — narrow glass tubes about 10 centimeters long, filled with tiny glass beads coated with gold.

"As the air sample flows through the tube, the mercury amalgamates, or sticks to the gold," Stephanie explained. "What our project really focused on was developing a method for measuring mercury in the air."

Their weeks of work culminated in a two-hour flight on Aug. 7, 2010. The students woke up early and headed for the launch site, a field in Mount Horeb, Wis. There, they placed all three experiments in the 18-by-21-inch payload box, which was then attached to a high-altitude balloon, a parachute and two tracking systems.

Five other students comprised the Elijah Launch Team, in charge of getting the payload off the ground and then retrieving it. 

"The balloon is initially about 6 feet in diameter," Stephanie explained. "It takes a whole tank of helium. As the balloon gets higher, it stretches to approximately three times its diameter, which causes it to burst. Once the balloon bursts, the payload falls."

Students Become Storm Chasers

 The tracking systems allowed the students to follow the balloon's flight and later find the payload. "Every 30 seconds, the tracking pod gave us a signal with its location, speed and altitude," Stephanie said. "It's like storm chasing. You're in your car with your computer and you're watching all these red dots come up, and you're saying 'Another red dot! Another red dot!' It was exciting."

The payload reached maximum altitude at 87,962 feet, and then landed in a field near Milton, Wis. The entire flight took more than two hours. Stephanie and her partner included a camera in the payload to record the balloon's flight, which they edited into a short video. (Watch the video above.)

"The really cool thing about high altitude ballooning is that it's an inexpensive way to get to 'space,' " Stephanie said. She's already looking for ways to conduct further research through payload projects.

"It's definitely real science — a real world experiment, and this stuff is all applicable to other research that people are doing," she said. "I can't wait to do more."

Related links:

• The Video

  Stephanie Finnvik, '12, and her Elijah Payload teammates created the video at left by including a camera with their payload on their Aug. 7 high altitude balloon flight. The video, edited from more than two hours of footage, shows the payload traveling to near-space before bursting at 87,962 feet and falling back to the ground. It took about 1-1/2 hours for the payload to ascend, and about 45 minutes to drop.

• Elijah Balloon Payload 2010

  Click on the link above to download Stephanie Finnvik's presentation from the 2010 Midwest Space Grant Consortium Annual Conference.

• WSGC 2010 Balloon Payload Team Read more about the 2010 Elijah Project, plus see photographs, project details and video, on this site created by the Elijah Payload Team members.

• Poster: Elijah Balloon Payload 2010 Click on the link above to download the 2010 Payload Team's poster from the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium's annual conference.

• Student Research See a list of all the Carthage students who presented research at the 2010 Undergraduate Research Symposia, held by the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science in November.