While HALO successfully made its way from Oberpfaffenhofen to Sal and Buenos Aires, lots of activities were going on in the hangar in Rio Grande in preparation for the arrival of HALO and upcoming research flights.

The sea container arrived on Saturday and was unloaded after customs had given the ok. Arriving groups found their working places in the rooms and office containers distributed in the hangar. Equipment was moved to places in the hangar where it is needed. Essential internet connection and a WIFI access point were established. The flight planning team started its daily forecasting and planning activities which was rapidly interrupted on Saturday morning by alerting TAF (Terminal Area Forecast) for EZE Airport Buenos Aires. Fog was announced for Sunday morning, the expected time of arrival of HALO. Seeing a too high risk for not being able to land at EZE and being diverted to an alternate airport with all the instruments’ staff and maintenance equipment being at EZE, the flight from Sal to EZE was delayed by two hours. HALO safely arrived in Buenos Aires at 11 o’clock. At the same time, a team in the Rio Grande hangar prepared a weather balloon carrying a radiosonde for testing purposes and to practice the release procedure which also includes the consultation of the flight control staff of the airport tower. The radiosonde was successfully launched and measured temperature and humidity up in the atmosphere. However, a problem with the GPS reception emerged which needs to be fixed the next days before doing the next launch in coordination with the first local HALO flight and radiosonde launches from El Calafate..