He gathered the string and instrumentation and we walked to the launch site called Sausage Point (there’s a fun story behind this name), which is across Winter Quarters Bay from Hut Point. It’s near the weather office, but we need to walk through the water treatment facility… Random yes, and smelly, but also nice and humid inside!

The water treatment facility

We then come to a staging area where the balloons are kept and we can access the helium. Edward meticulously attached the balloon to the nozzle, started pumping the helium. While the balloon was getting bigger and bigger, he made final preparations such as cutting the string at proper length to tie the instruments to the balloon and making some calls, presumably to Mac Ops notifying them and any air traffic that a balloon will be launched soon.