A high-altitude dual balloons system, the 'Stratochip', was designed at the Geological Survey of Belgium to serve as a development platform to carry measurement and earth observation equipments, in altitudes comprised between 1000 and 25000m. These working altitudes far exceed the range of current motor powered unmanned aerial vehicules, with a higher weight carrying capacity (up to 10-15kg). This platform is built around a two helium balloons configuration, than can be released one by one at a target altitude or location, allowing a partially controlled drift of the platform. Using a 'nowcasting' meteorological model, updated by flight telemetry, the predicted path can be refined live to follow and retrieve the equipment in a predicted landing area. All subsystems (balloon cut-off devices, flight controller, telemetry system) have been developed in-house. Three independent communication channels, designed to work at extremely low temperature (up to -60° C) ensure a continuous tracking until landing. A calibrated parachute is used to control the safe descent of the equipment. Several flight tests have been performed in Belgium to control the meteorological model accuracy for wind predictions (model based on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data). Those tests demonstrated the capability of the platform to maintain its altitude in a predicted path, allowing using the platform for new types of atmospheric studies and affordable high-altitude remote-sensing applications (i.e. sub-meter resolution stereo imagery).
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The largest cobalt ore reserves are located in DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of cobalt is observed as black cobaltic oxide minerals: heterogenite [HCoO2] and asbolane [(Ni,Co)2-xMn(O,OH)4.nH2O] which are hardly differentiable since they exhibit similar macroscopic habit and textures. These minerals are frequently observed in similar environment (oxidized horizon of ore deposits) and they are commonly poorly-crystallized limiting their study with XRD. Their chemical composition is also not very well-constrained since they exhibit significant chemical substitutions with cations as Cu, Co, Ni, Mn. Our observations on a set of heterogenite and asbolane samples from DRC combined with samples from other localities shows that each phase, even under an amorphous form, can be readily distinguished by Raman microspectrometry. This technique is therefore attractive during ore deposit characterization campaigns or during the follow-up extraction operations where it is important to distinguish the main constituting Co-phase(s). The main advantage of this technique is its speed since no sample preparation is required during the collection Raman spectra that usually last few tens of seconds. The method provides information at a mum-scale and several points are thus required to fully characterize ore batches composed of different mineralogical phases. Our petrographical observations show also that asbolane and heterogenite mineralogical phases can coexist at a mum-scale as two distinct phases into 'heterogenite' ore. The distinction between heterogenite and asbolane from our sample set can also be conducted on a chemical base showing that heterogenite represents the richer Co-phase with variable Cu concentrations. By contrast, only Mn traces are usually observed in heterogenite minerals from DRC except in few samples, but always in lower concentration than in asbolane. The latter shows variable Mn/(Mn+Co) ratio between 0.85 and 0.3 and the decrease of this value is related to enrichment into Cu.
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