Our third high altitude balloon, Aether III, with helium kindly supplied by Richard Massey in the Durham Physics Department, embarked on its celestial journey on Wednesday, 14th June. This mission marked a significant milestone as it carried our inaugural home-built GPS tracker, in addition to the Iridium-based solar tracker, we had used previously. The balloon also featured a set of experiments, such as an atmospheric monitoring board, collecting a plethora of data including UV measurements. The tracker exceeded our expectations, performing admirably up to 30km, before it stopped transmitting, likely due to power supply issues.

However, the balloon's fate was sealed by the combination of a late launch time at 4:30 pm and a slower-than-expected ascent rate, at only half of the anticipated speed. As a result, the balloon touched down after sunset, rendering our solar tracker ineffective in the absence of sufficient sunlight for signal transmission. Despite our diligent search on the Yorkshire moors that Sunday, daylight eluded us, and the balloon remained elusive. Nevertheless, valuable lessons were learned from this endeavour, propelling us towards Aether IV, where we will make further improvements to our tracking system.