Spirit of Knoxville launches today

The Spirit of Knoxville I balloon mission will launch today and will carry beacons in the Amateur Radio 144 and 10 MHz bands.

Dan Bowen K2VOL writes

This is not intended to cross the Atlantic ocean, but to test all systems to ensure that they are ready to cross. It should travel a fair distance, and show us if there are any problems left for us to solve. You can follow the progress of the flight live at: http://www.spiritofknoxville.com/

(Check back on Saturday for the live mission info, it will not display the information until the flight)

Launch Date: Saturday 1 December 2007
Launch Time: 730 EST, 1230 UTC
Location: Knoxville Tennessee Downtown Island Airport
Duration: 1 - 5 days in the air
Purpose: Test endurance of ballast and balloon system; test volunteer DTRC radio network system Projected Path:
From Tennessee it should travel southeast to the US Atlantic coast, then gradually curve around Florida into the Caribbean Sea.

DTRC Volunteers: HF will not begin transmitting until well clear of the US coast, approximately 6 hours after launch. Details of when this transition will occur will be on the DTRC status page.

Communications Frequencies
* 144.390 Mhz AA4UT-11 APRS beacon (while over USA only)
* 10.122 RTTY/CW Telemetry TBD (while outside of USA and UK)

Icarus X Wiki Page
http://www.utarc.org/wiki/index.php/Icarus_X