The weather conditions are right, Peaky is working and his batteries fully charged. Our launchers from Pixmore Junior School are travelling to Roysia to carry out the launch. Everything is good to go! 

During the flight you can follow Peaky's progress online by visiting  www.tinyurl.com/jvaf3ye 

This shows Peaky's location precisely on a map with updates every 10 minutes. It doesn't indicate his height. We expect to loose the signal at around 20,000metres up and will only receive it again when Peaky drops below this level.

During the flight we will be able to get data every second via the radio tracker and hopefully also get a broadcast of what Peaky is saying. 

Dan

The predicted flight paths for Monday 16th and Tuesday 17th Jan show Peaky drifting south. The Civil Aviation Authority requires us only to launch when the balloon will drift to the north or north west. So we have ruled out a launch before Wednesday. 

Currently the predicted path for Wednesday 18th is also wrong for launch. However, things can change and we'll make a final decision on whether Wednesday is a possible launch day on Monday.

​At least Peaky is going to get a bit more rest time.

Here are the predictions for launching early next week. The red blob is launch site, the green blob is landing location. The CAA will only allow us to launch if the drift is to the North or North West. So as things stand Monday doesn't look likely, Wednesday looks to give us the best chance. Of course everything can change and just because Wednesday looks okay for launch now doesn't mean it will still be on Tuesday morning.

We have to make a decision on launch three days ahead, so will make a final decision on whether we can launch on Monday 16th on Friday 14th. After that we'll make a decision each day on whether we can launch in three days time.

Alma explains how Peaky's system will work to send data back to Earth during the mission.

We're launching Peaky from Roysia Middle School in Royston, Hertfordshire at some point between the 16th January and 16th February.

​The question is when! In order to launch the conditions need to be just right.

​Here's the list of things we need to consider:

1. Once we've launched Peaky we have no control over where he goes. However, there is a flight predictor that gives us an estimated flight path. We need to make sure that we don't launch if it predicts Peaky will land in the sea.
2. ​We need permission from the Civil Aviation Authority, the organisation that manages the routes that aircraft take. They are likely to say we will can only launch if the wind is blowing towards the North (away from the airports around London) .You can try the predictor by going to http://predict.habhub.org/ Find Roysia Middle School on the map then click 'Set with map'. Click 'Run Prediction' to see the predicted flight path marked with a black line on the map (the red dot is launch site, the flame is burst, the green dot is landing location). Try different launch dates and times.
3. The wind at the launch site must gust below 10 mph. Any higher and the balloon will be very difficult to handle while we are inflating and it may burst. Check the wind gust speed on http://metoffice.gov.uk. Try dragging the slider to see different days and times.
4. We need to launch Peaky on a weekday morning.
5. We cannot launch during the week of 23th-28th January. 

We need all of these conditions right before we can launch. Why not leave a comment with a recommendation on a good date to launch Peaky.