Introduction to Weather Balloons

A convenient way
to gather
atmospheric data
at high altitudes
is to use weather
balloons (current
record altitude for
unmanned gas
>lled balloon
seems to be 53
km of BU60-1
Japanese
balloon). As this
Figure 1 – A picture from the
kind of devices is
balloon Actarus project
used for weather
forecast and
research the speci>c literature on the topic is widely
available [1] and consolidated. Air data systems are a
common payload across that kind of probe, from here
our interest on the topic. Here we introduce the basic
hardware, provide a basic calculation script for balloon
sizing and describe the ground >lling operations. The
topics involved are different and heterogeneous so we
will split topics along a mini-series of articles on
balloons.

We will focus on the most common DIY setup, a sealed

balloon >lled with helium and with a rope suspended
payload. Helium is lighter than air so it makes the
balloon Roat.

System Layout
Any component you chose to use should be reliable,
safe and disposable. Redundancy can be the winning
choice. The payload can be put within a box or
exposed to the atmosphere, in both cases consider the
low ambient temperatures; temperatures can affect
electronics, and batteries, nominal operation. In the
tropopause the temperature can fall below -50°C.
Refer to Figure 2, the probe is composed of >ve main
parts. The balloon, the rigging, the recovery parachute,
the payload and the balloon >lling gas.

The typical setup is shown in Figure 3. We will focus on

latex sealed balloons, this kind of balloons will expand
as the probe ascends and will burst when their
maximum diameter is reached. Availability is good and
they are affordable. Medium high altitudes, let’s say
around 30 Km, can be reached without too much
hassle. The balloon is secured to the hanging payload
by means of strings, any string or accessory used for
this purpose is part of the rigging. That is not an issue
for small payloads but it is of relevance with heavy
payloads; balloon wall is thin, it’s not able to support
heavy loads, a concentrated load will pierce the
envelope. The parachute will slow down the payload
descent when the balloon explodes, during the ascent,
the parachute is already exposed and hangs from the
rigging.

The payload is
composed of all
the hardware that
should Ry with
the probe, we can
divide the
equipment into
two big families.
Common
equipment and
mission speci>c
hardware. The
>rst family
Figure 2 – General Layout of a
includes all the
Sounding Balloon
hardware that is
absolutely
necessary to Ry, typical hardware listed in Table 1.

Power source, battery pack. Can be one single

power source for every component of the probe
or the power can be distributed among different
devices. It is to be considered that power source
is mission critical. For most important probes it’s
possible to use dual failsafe power sources.
Position tracker. Any device needed to locate the
payload after touchdown. With low weight
probes, a GPS-based locator can be used. See for
example. The probe will be located after the
touchdown with a cell phone. Most complex
probes can have a full duplex telemetry radio link
active during the Right.

Table 1 – Common equipment

Besides that, you need mission speci>c hardware. You

>nd a typical list of components in Table 2.

Camera. You can have also multiple cameras.

For example, one looking downwards and
another looking to the horizon. A useful feature is
to have the possibility to shoot pictures at
determined times. Pictures are usually stored on
a memory card or solid state device, the storage
limit has an impact on the possibility to have a
full photo coverage of the Right.
Inertial Movement Unit. It provides acceleration,
rotation and position information on the three
Basicaxes.
Air Data
They are compact and can be equipped
with three-axis magnetometers. (See for
example)
Air Data Computer. Equipped with sensors for
external temperature, pressure, and humidity.
Vertical speed probe. Apart inertial data it is
possible to have a dedicated probe to measure
vertical airspeed.

Table 2 – Mission-speci>c equipment

Figure 3 – A Latex Weather Balloon

Balloon Math Modeling

To produce a really simple, and conservative, model we
will work under strong simpli>cations; generated
model can be used during the hardware selection
phase but it is not suitable for accurate performance
prediction nor for Right simulation.

Ascending Balloon [1] [2]

Refer to >gure 5, let’s model the whole probe as a
mass point. Our probe Roats thanks to the buoyancy.
The upthrust available using a sealed balloon is
proportional to the weight of displaced air
where is the balloon volume and g
is the gravitational acceleration.
The balloon, of diameter will expand as the air
density decreases, as a direct consequence the forces
exerted on the balloon material will increase. In the
speci>c case [3] the stress on the material section will
be equal to . Apart the punctual value the
stress is to be noted that if the stress is greater than
zero then we have that internal pressure is greater
than air pressure . The pressure inside the balloon is
not equal to the external pressure. To avoid the
mechanical treatment of the mechanical expansion we
will work under the hypothesis of “rigid balloon” or the
so called not stressed balloon, the internal pressure is
exactly the air pressure. During the ascension, the
balloon will expand because of the temperature
change to the air and to the helium. During the ascent
the air temperature will change, the helium
temperature will change too. The temperature
distribution across the balloon volume will not be
uniform, as a simpli>cation in our model the
temperature will be a determined parameter. The
temperature across the atmosphere will be assumed
to be distributed as per the U.S. 1976 Standard
Atmosphere [4]. Solar radiation contributes to balloon
energy balance [2] so will have an impact on
expansion, we will neglect also that contribution, for
the peace of the mind think that you are estimating the
performance of a night launched balloon; bibliography
reports [2] lower ascent ratios during the night.

The
weight
force
acting
on the
probe
is

Figure 4 – Rigged Recovery Parachute

, where is the total probe mass. Another

force acting on the probe is the drag exerted by the air
the probe is moving in. The direction of drag is
dependent on the lateral movement of the balloon.
Laterals dynamic of the balloon is dominated by
horizontal wind component. For example purposes we
will consider a small angle of attack . Drag force
expression is: [2]

(1)

Where is the still air rise rate in m/s, is the cross

area of the balloon and is the coekcient of drag
for the balloon. The coekcient of drag is dependent on
and Re. This drag coekcient should consider the
contribute of the payload and rigging, but this former
contributes are often neglected, most accurate way to
determine coekcient value is by Right test [2] or wind
tunnel testing.

A less accurate approximation is to consider the

balloon as a perfect sphere, in such a way we can use
the coekcient of drag for a sphere. We will operate
with that assumption. The coekcient of drag of a
sphere depends on the Reynolds number [2], so on the
density; for this reason, the should be considered a
function of Re and practically of altitude. In our model
we will set the drag coekcient at 0.47; that will be a
value too high for ground conditions and far more
appropriate for low Re high altitude conditions. Setting
a high will overestimate the drag force near the ground,
that will give to us an optimistic or conservative
estimation of balloon performances as the ascent rate.

Given the mass of

the payload and
rigging , the
mass of the
balloon and
the mass of
helium contained
within the balloon
we get that the
net buoyancy
force is:

(2)
Figure 5 – Probe Model
Combing
Equation 1 and 2
we get the probe rise rate in still air:

(3)

Descending Balloon [1] [2]

At the balloon bursts, the probe will initiate to fall back
to Earth. To avoid mushing of the payload the recovery
parachute should be correctly sized. Reusing
ascending equations and replacing the parachute
coekcient of drag instead of the balloon we
get the expression of vertical descending speed.

(4)

Where is the area of the parachute. Equation 4

neglects the contribute of the payload drag, likely we
will overestimate the descending speed.

Check your local regulations

Prior to any launch please check your local regulations
about unmanned gas balloons launch. To date
(15/04/2016) in Italy in necessary to notify the launch
to ENAC, with this modules. The Italian Civil Aviation
Authority names the ICAO [5] Annex 2 Appendix 4 as
the source for determining what data should be
communicated prior to launch to ENAC.
ICAO de>ne different classes of unmanned balloons,
classi>cation is based on payload weight. For example,
a balloon with a single package payload(anything
different from the balloon) that weights less than 3kg
is considered as a light balloon. To be considered light
the payload should be suspended with a rope that
requires an impact force less than 230N to be
separated from the balloon. Another requirement is to
have an area density of less than 13g per square
centimeter. To calculate the area density you should
divide the mass in grams of the payload package by
the area if square centimeters of the package smallest
surface. A light balloon has less operating limitations
respect to heavy balloons.

Pick your equipment

Figure 6 – ClassiKcation of unmanned free balloon

from ICAO

The design is an iterative process, sometimes you

should redo the same procedure over and over up to
the solution convergence. At >rst, you need to decide
you mission objective, the more constraints you have
the faster you will found a solution.

For example purposes I selected the following

requirements.
, Target burst altitude, 32000m
, Payload weight, 0.6 kg
, Ballon weight, 0.6 kg
, Balloon burst diameter by producer information,
m
, Fly time, 180 minutes
, Parachute coekcient of drag, >rst guess value
1.75
, Vertical ascending speed, 3 m/s
, Vertical descending speed at landing, 10 m/s

Note that in the list it is included the burst diameter,

that data should be supplied by the balloon producer.
As a result of the preliminary design, we will determine
the required balloon size, the mass of helium to load
into the balloon at ground and the buoyancy at ground.
You can see the desired design output parameters in
Table 3.

, Net buoyancy force or free lift, N

, Mass of helium, kg
, Mass of balloon, kg
, Vertical speed at ground at , m/s
, Rise time , hour
, Fall time , hour
, Maximum allowable payload weight to
reach , kg
, Buoyancy at ground, N

Table 3 – Design output parameters

We have a model of our balloon and we have de>ned

design output parameters, within the next post we will
use a Scilab/Matlab script for sizing.

Example sizing
Here we walk through a preliminary design example.
Recalling the model of the ascending balloon and the
rigid balloon hypothesis we observe that net buoyancy
during the ascent is constant. The calculated data
will be used to launch, so inRate, properly the balloon.
Measuring the balloon volume it is not an easy way to
go, usually, the easier way is to measure free lift force
at ground. You can use this [download id=”2565″] to
calculate lift at ground, rise time, fall time, average
speed during rising, and the required mass of helium.
Input data will be burst altitude [m], payload mass [kg],
balloon mass, balloon burst diameter [m], Ry time in
minutes, parachute coekcient of drag, vertical
descending desired speed at ground[m/s]. To launch a
preliminary design, with our example data, we invoke
the SizeProbe function in the following way:

[FL, RiseTime, FallTime, wr,mHe]=SizeProbe(320

00,0.6, 0.6,5.791,180,10,1.75)

The results will be:

mHe = 0.1983532
wr = 2.1052632
FallTime = 3200
RiseTime = 7600
FL = 0.3628609

Burst diameter should be read from producer data or

found by experience, for example, see this table. You
see that our preliminary design gives to us an
indication that our balloon sizing can provide the
required performances.

Another alternative and quick way to proceed is to use

online design tools that are prepared by the balloon
producers, for example.

I report here some other helpful online design

calculator:

https://www.highaltitudescience.com/pages/balloon-
performance-calculator

https://www.stratoRights.com

https://www.scienti>csales.com/Meteorological-
Weather-Sounding-Balloon-s/25.htm

Typically those tools are designed to be on the safer

side, they will be pessimistic about performances;
results are good for design but do not provide an
accurate balloon behavior description. We have other
aspects to consider before the launch, as the trajectory
prediction. Balloon trajectory is highly dependent on
the wind. Once again we’ve to consider that the
available data on wind is far from to be complete or
exact; often we desire to know a trajectory in the next
future and so the simulations will be based on a wind
forecast. Beside that we can >nd some trajectory
predictor, for example, this in this link from CUSF. From
the predictions, you will notice that balloons will cover
wide distances, it is necessary to have one or more
well-prepared recovery teams that can easily travel
across the country.

We’ve exposed some aspects of balloon operation. Key

factors are preparation, training, and performance
estimation.

Happy landings!

References
[1] A. Gallice , F. G. Wienhold , C. R. Hoyle, F. Immler,
and T. Peter(2011), Modeling the ascent of sounding
balloons:derivation of the vertical air motion,
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques Retrieved
Online 01/07/2016
[2] Wang et al (2009), Vertical Air Motion from T-REX
Radiosonde and Dropsonde Data, AMS Retrieved
Online 01/07/2016
[3] CAS/courses.d/Structures.d/IAST.Lect03.d/ Thin
Walled Pressure Vessels, Retrieved Online 15/04/2016
and this doc
[4] U.S. 1976 Standard Atmosphere , Retrieved Online
15/04/2016
[5] ICAO (2006), Annex 2 Appendix 4, Retrieved Online
15/04/2016

(C) BASICAIRDATA 2011