Development of large rubber balloons for high altitude weather studies

Abstract

The indigenous development of high-altitude rubber (latex) balloons was initiated in 1984 under a development contract with Mis. Pawan Rubber Products, Pune. During the period January 1985 and August 1989, five different developmental batches of 2000 g rubber balloons were manufactured at Pawan Rubber Products, Pune under close quality control by people from the Pawan Rubber and from the balloon group of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). The first four batches were flight tested from Hyderabad; each balloon carrying IMD's RS/RW payload weighing 1.8 kg. The fifth batch of balloons was tested from ISRO's Sriharikota and Balasore station with light weight radar target as a payload. In this paper the flight test results of all the five developmental batches are presented. As the manufacturing parameters got optimized, the performance of balloons steadily improved from batch to batch up to the fourth developmental batch. About 70% balloons of the fourth batch reached 30 km and above. The manufacturing process parameters (mpp) were optimized to those used for the fourth batch, and the fifth batch was manufactured with these values of mpps. But only 55% balloons of the fifth batch reached 30 km and above, perhaps suggesting the need for better quality control and further optimization of the manufacturing parameters.