Cadets from the Ohio Wing’s Cuyahoga County Cadet Squadron placed first this year in Civil Air Patrol’s fourth High-Altitude Balloon Challenge, earning top honors and a $5,000 prize for their experiment exploring the use of Faraday fabric to protect electronics from solar flares in the stratosphere and beyond.
Second place went to the Wisconsin Wing’s Stevens Point Composite Squadron team, which interviewed NASA specialists while learning how to adapt plant growth processes in the confinements of space habitats.
The Stevens Point team finished first in 2023, while the Cuyahoga County’s 2022 entry finished second that year.
The 2024 competition involved more than 1,500 cadets and 250 adult members from 167 squadrons representing all eight CAP regions and 49 wings. The cadet teams designed over 400 experiments for launching to the stratosphere in 50-mililiter test tubes on three high-altitude weather balloons that climbed to 90,338-96,883 feet before parachuting back to Earth for recovery.
The participating cadets conducted extensive research and worked collaboratively, consulting with universities and subject matter experts, in designing their experiments.
Each team submitted four components for the challenge —
A mission patch
A pre-launch video describing their experiment
A report sharing the results of their major experiment
A post-launch video documenting their involvement in the activity.
The top-scoring teams in each category received grants provided by the challenge sponsor, the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA), with the Cuyahoga County squadron receiving the $5,000 prize and the Kittinger Cup for achieving the highest cumulative score.
U.S. Air Force Col. Joe Kittinger, pioneering high-altitude balloon scientist, was the original ambassador for the balloon challenge. After his passing in December 2022, his wife, Sherry Kittinger, has continued providing the Kittinger Cup and the $5,000 prize for first place.
The Cuyahoga County team plans to use the $5,000 prize to “purchase Arduino microcontrollers, sensors, and Raspberry Pi’s to teach other cadets how to code; purchase new computers to accommodate growing involvement in the AFA CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Education Program competition; and donate to the International Women’s Air and Space Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, to fund a CAP display in their museum,” Cadet Tech. Sgt. Stephen Otterman said.
For the fourth straight August, the Indiana Wing handled recovery of the balloons upon their return, joined this time by the Ohio Wing. Two of the balloons crossed the Indiana border into Ohio before landing.
The launch and recovery mission was based at Anderson Preparatory Academy, where the Indiana Wing’s Anderson Preparatory Academy Cadet Squadron is based.
Nearly 50 adult members and cadets participated.
Indiana Wing cadets provided communications through the CAP radio station at the Bernard K. McKenzie Center for Innovation and Technology in Indianapolis, home to the Titan Cadet Squadron. Before, during, and after the launch, the radio operators and trainees maintained continuous communication between launch control, aircraft, and ground teams.
After retrieval by the ground teams, the recovered experiment tubes were paired with their control tubes and packaged for return shipment to the cadet teams for analysis of their experiments. The cadets considered the balloons’ landing latitude and longitude, temperature, acceleration, and overall light intensity, as well as ultraviolet and infrared radiation level effects on their experiments.
The winning team’s experiment “encouraged our cadets to work as a team to research, explore, innovate, and discover how to protect electronics against solar flares and electromagnetic interference during future space exploration,said Cadet Maj. John Anand, team captain.
“We learned a great deal in the process, such as greater coding skills, soldering techniques, and video editing skills,” Anand said.
The runner-up Stevens Point squadron cadets carried out “a demanding project requiring not just various skills but committed teamwork,” said 1st Lt. Jessica Schaefer, assistant aerospace education officer.
“Cadets must be willing to learn quickly, take feedback, and work hard,” Schaefer said. assistant aerospace education officer.
In doing so, she said, “they started believing they’re capable of more, and they started driving hard for that.”
“They became, like Col. Joe Kittinger, believers that hard things, impossible things, are achievable.”
To see all award winners and documentary videos, see the HABC award slides. To find out all program details, see the High-Altitude Balloon Challenge webpage.
