The Supply of Meteorological Balloons and Parachutes

Met Éireann invites quotations for the supply of Meteorological Weather Balloons and parachutes to facilitate radiosonde flights, both automatically and manually launched. The balloons should be suitable for use with helium and hydrogen lifting gases, the Vaisala AS41 Autosonde system and the associated Vaisala RS41-SG radiosondes, and also including the use of additional heavier ozone sensing payloads at Valentia Observatory.

Currently 600grm balloons are used in the Autosonde and 1200 gramme balloons with external parachutes are used for the manually launched Ozone ascents. Tenders should also bid for various other balloon size options as well as for balloons with internal parachutes as technological changes and flight requirements may lead to lighter payloads and decent data being required.