Our group launches balloons on Saturdays so naturally our fun starts that Friday as we each get done with whatever work we do during the week. The team this year consisted of Jason - KC8LIN, Andrew - KD8JKF, Ricky - N8SQL and myself (Jim - KG4SGP).
I’m really glad to say that the night before the launch was much better than last year. Last year on our UA-HABP1 launch we stayed up from Friday night right through until after the balloon was in the air. It was a total free for all on trying to get things working caused by not testing or planning things enough. This year was better, much better.
That Friday we had some final assembly work that needed to be done, but our primary systems were functional and all of the indications were that this would be a pretty smooth and coordinated launch. Not to mention we would get a decent bit of sleep the night before! A welcome (planned) difference from the year previous!