SOUTH AMERICAN BALLOON SERIES ENDSSOURCE: Imprimatur.com THE PRE-HIBISCUS SERIES COMES TO A CLOSE This year's pre-HIBISCUS campaign by France's CNES, aimed at securing ozone distribution data from the atmosphere in tropical areas, has ended successfully. The launches made as part of said campaign were the following Short range balloons: 10ZL ENVISAT1 (10.000 m3) successfully launched on 2/18 in the morning 3SF (10.000 m3) successfully launched on 2/19 in the afternoon 10ZL ENVISAT2 (10.000 m3) successfully launched on 2/23 at 20:20 hrs. local (23:20 utc) Long-Range balloons: MIR ENVISAT1 (45.000 m3) launched on 2/19 at las 20:00 hrs local (23:00 utc). The launch failed when the balloon developed a leak. MIR ENVISAT2 (45.000 m3) launched on 3/20 at 20:00 hrs local (23:00 utc); still in flight. MIR PREHIBIS (45.000 m3) launched on 2/22 at 20:00 hrs local (23:00 utc). The launch failed when the balloon developed a leak at the Tropopause level. MIR46 (45.000 m3) launched on 2/23 ats 20:00 hrs local (23:00 utc); still in flight. Scientiests deduct that they will obtain excellent data tending toward validation of the recently launched ENVISAT satellite. As of this writing (14:00 UTC; 2/27) only two MIR balloons remain in flight, which are over the Pacific Ocean following a more or less straight line along the Tropic of Capricorn, heading for Australia. Without mishaps, the first of these balloons should reach Eastern Australia on February 28, departing the area two days later; the second would tentatively reach it on March 1st, and then move into the Indian Ocean on March 3rd. Up to the moment, the only UFO-related incident occurred in the city of Calama on Friday, Feb. 21, when the MIR was seen over Chilean skies. However, far from the controversy and media display generated by these very same balloons in the SWWS 2001 campaign, the press immediately attributed the event to the transit of the French devices. If the MIR balloons remain in flight, and no decision is made to preemtpivedly terminate the mission, they would complete their first circumnavigation of the globe, re-entering the South American landmass from the Atlantic Ocean between March 12 and the 17th. More information: http://www.aero.jussieu.fr/projet/HIBISCUS/en/many/campaign2003.html To follow the MIR balloon route: http://ballon.cnes.fr:8180/bauru2003/localisations_bauru2003_gb.htm =========================================== Translation (C) 2002 Scott Corrales Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU) Special thanks to Luis Eduardo Pacheco UFOINFO would like to thank Scott Corrales and UFO UpDates for granting permission to use this article. You can subscribe to UFO UpDates by writing to Errol Bruce-Knapp at: ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net |
