As the 2019-2020 academic year draws to a close, it's time to finally close the lid on Project HALO 2019. Yes, one could argue that the lid could have just as easily been closed at the end of last summer, but this grad student apparently has a busy schedule and a mild habit of procrastination. Luckily, the looming deadline for final funding reports to be submitted to the Indiana Space Grant Consortium (INSGC) was the perfect motivation to finish writing a summary of the program and get around to publishing the flight video.

I am attaching my summary report to this post; alternatively, for something a bit more entertaining, you can watch the flight video which was compiled by team member Talal.

Project HALO was, by my estimation, a rewarding, challenging, and thoroughly fun experience for all involved - certainly it was all of those things to me as the leader/mentor of the project. I am pleased to announce that our funding has been renewed for 2020. Naturally, the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic mean that meeting regularly in close quarters as we did last summer is likely inadvisable at the current time. I am still brainstorming ways to execute the project in these strange times, but I am optimistic that we will be able to build and launch a second high-altitude balloon payload by the end of the year. Stay tuned for more information!