X2Griffon maiden flight: first landing projection points to Vigo County, Indiana; will it change?

OLNEY, Ill. - Sept. 13, 2026 - PRLog -- Using the NOAA GFS model current as of 12:00 UTC on September 13, and a launch at 1:00 p.m. CDT (1800 UTC), the payload is forecast to climb to about 95,000 feet, burst over eastern Clark County, Illinois, and return to Earth about 34 miles east-northeast of the church — in rural Vigo County, Indiana, south of Terre Haute.

That pin is a working forecast, not a recovery address. Winds six days out still move. Aerostratospheric will rerun the trajectory after every major model cycle this week and again on launch morning, so the public and the recovery team see an updated time and place for when X2Griffon comes back through the atmosphere and lands.

Launch site: Casey First Church of the Nazarene (KZ Naz), 39.31551° N, 87.97044° W

Launch window: 12:00–2:00 p.m. CDT Saturday, September 19; planned pad time 1:00 p.m. CDT

Predicted burst: about 2:33 p.m. CDT, near 95,400 feet, still over Illinois

Predicted landing: about 3:07 p.m. CDT, 39.369° N, 87.330° W, Vigo County, Indiana

Flight time: roughly two hours and seven minutes

Direction: east-northeast from Casey across the Illinois–Indiana line

The forecast landing is countryside south of Terre Haute, east of the Wabash River — not downtown Terre Haute and not the church lawn. Small changes in ascent rate or burst height in this wind pattern only slide the landing a few miles. The heading stays east.

Why the numbers will change

High-altitude balloons drift on winds that the weather models revise every six hours. A projection issued on Sunday is good for planning a search box. It is not good enough to knock on a landowner's door.

Aerostratospheric will republish the track after the 00Z, 06Z, 12Z, and 18Z GFS cycles as launch day approaches, and will issue a final pad prediction the morning of September 19. X2Griffon is Aerostratospheric's flagship stratospheric profiler: a Midwest-built package of about 1.01 pounds that records temperature, humidity, pressure, and GPS-derived wind on the way up and down. Telemetry is amateur radio APRS and WSPR under callsign KE9CFY. Recovery is by parachute, with the Midwest Payload Ground Recovery team and a Bluetooth last-mile beacon.
Science data from a successful recovery is intended for public release through Aerostratospheric's data hub, typically within 48 hours.
midwestsds.com.