Ellie D. is a user on mastodon.social. You can follow them or interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse.
If you don't, you can sign up here.
Our 900 MHz radio tracker got absolutely beaned by a wind turbine shortly before landing. Rest in RIP, 2008-2018
@diodelass so cool!
We never found the other half of the stack. The tracker was between the payloads and the parachute, so presumably what was left of the tracker got carried off by the newly-liberated balloon, leaving the payloads to tumble to the ground (landing basically where that second picture was taken).
It's a miracle the payloads weren't damaged.
The last reported position was about 50 meters off the ground and basically directly where the windmill was, so it must have been basically in the process of getting wiped out when it sent that.
On the plus side, the payloads survived the flight.
Sadly, though, the balloon leaked and we didn't get higher than about 16000 feet. Still high enough to see a rise in cosmic ray intensity, though.