The Grade 12 physics class at West Ferris Secondary and Intermediate School will launch its weather balloon on Tuesday.
The launch will take place in centre field at the school at about 10:30am and the public is invited to watch.
The students have been working on the project for weeks and the payload includes sensor, video and radio tracking equipment.
There’s also an onboard experiment to determine where to best place solar panels on the payload for future launches.
Once the students have packaged everything in Kelly Shulman’s physics class, they’ll head to the field and fill the balloon with helium.
The balloon will climb about 30 kilometres before it explodes and a parachute is deployed to bring it back safely to Earth.
The time from launch to landing is expected to take about three hours.
The public can track the balloon’s flight by going to www.shulman.x10host.com.
The balloon is expected to land somewhere in the Powassan-Nipissing area south of North Bay sometime Tuesday afternoon.
The North Bay Amateur Radio Club will be on-site at launch time to track the balloon’s flight.
A retrieval team will pick up the payload once it’s back on the ground.
However, if a member of the public spots it, they’re asked to call the school at 475-2333.
