ANITA has launched!!!

ANITA launched at about 11am NZ time on 21/12!  Fantastic!  It was also pretty good to send it off on the 2nd attempt - last year it took 7.

I'm writing this having been at work for 20 hours yesterday, with 5 hours sleep before another shift today.  Others have been awake and working longer too.  It's possible to track the payload position at http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon8/balloon8.htm.  Not the most interesting website admittedly, but still ... here's to hoping for a nice path over the bulk of east Antarctica.

Launching the balloon is a pretty slow and painful process ... here are 4 photos representing few hours!

ANITA on the boss as the balloon gets filled with helium ... slowly ... (about 2 hours after reaching the pad)

Nearly 4 hours after getting onto the pad the balloon is finally ready to launch ...

ANITA gets released and the drop downs deploy

Now I just sit and watch data coming down.  Tomorrow I'm going to do some serious catching up on lost Zzzs.

4 hours after launch, the balloon is at 36km and fully inflated!  ANITA is still visible.