Mesospheric Explorer 2

There is a new vehicle that we will be flying with Tandem.

The new vehicle will be both a chase vehicle for Tandem and chance to run really high.
It’s called the Mesospheric Explorer 2 (ME Too!).

The Mesospheric Explorer One was flown about 10 years ago. It was intended to break our altitude record of 130,000 feet and be the start of a series that would reach the Mesosphere (160,000 feet). The ME One vanished at 30,000 feet never to be heard from again.

ME Too will use two of the big Tandem balloons (the Tandem backups). However instead of 62 pounds like the Tandem it only weights 11 pounds.  It will climb fast and high.

It’s carrying four HD video cameras covering 360 degrees. Our goal is to launch it 30 minutes after Tandems launched. It will then get great in flight images of Tandem as it passed her at 50,000 feet. It will then keep heading up to over 120,000 feet.

Here she is to scale at peak altitude:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 11th, 2011 at 5:20 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Mesospheric Explorer 2”

  1. Innovacer says:
    October 11, 2011 at 5:57 am

    Absolutely wonderful! Great work JP Aero, I am really looking forward to this Away mission.

  2. SCH Thurston says:
    October 11, 2011 at 12:45 pm

    What was the fix for the weird oscillations between twin balloons?

  3. Ed says:
    October 12, 2011 at 9:27 am

    Great job, John…and I love the name (Me Too)