A Poor Man's Balloon Control and Data System

Abstract

AFGL has the responsibility to provide command control and TM data systems for many scientific high altitude balloon experiments. The variety of these experiments led to the development of two basic systems: (1) For high data rates and instant command control and IRIG-compatible command and TM system can be used. (2) For long duration, over the horizon balloon flights, when neither the data rate nor the command response time is important, a slow balloon control and TM system can be provided. This paper describes AFGL's simple, inexpensive and slow balloon control and data system. The discussions include the HF command system, the data encoder and its code format, and the ground control station where the scientific balloon data is decoded and displayed. Advantages and disadvantages of the slow control and data system are also treated.