The Mission Control App is finally available for download. Hooray! We have versions for iOS and Android and you can get them here:

The app isn't fancy, but it gets the job done. Here's a quick walkthrough of what you'll find inside.

When the app launches, it pulls from our server the most recent mission data. Check the Mission Start date & time to see if it's an old mission or one that's currently underway. You can also check our Facebook or Twitter feeds to see if there's a mission in progress.

The Status messages convey information from the HAPP at various stages of the mission. More on this later.

The Abort button is there just to drive you nuts. Just kidding! You can push it, but the public version of the app will not trigger an actual abort. My version of the app, however, will initiate the cutdown pyros and deploy the parachutes. <UPDATE: We have removed the Abort button from the public app.>

The telemetry display at the bottom of the screen shows Altitude, Vertical Speed, Horizontal Speed, and Heading. 

The target button will re-center the map display on the HAPP's current position. You can also scale and pan around the map as desired.

On the map you'll see grey and blue lines. The grey line is the simulated flight path, which we generate prior to launch based on wind data (this site is one of the best simulators available to the public). The blue line is the actual position data coming down from the HAPP.

You'll also notice some position indicators. The blue circle is the HAPP's current location. (If this is data from a mission that's already ended, the blue circle is the last position data transmitted from the HAPP). The green indicator is the launch site, the yellow indicator is the location of anticipated balloon burst, and the red indicator is the landing site. There are indicators on both the grey line (simulations) and the blue line (actual data).

Finally, let's discuss the Status messages. Here's a full listing of the messages you might see and how to interpret them. Note that you might not see all of these messages during the course of a flight. In the best case we only get telemetry every 30 seconds, and in the worst case (with unlucky alignment of Iridium satellites) there might be a delay of a few minutes. During that time the HAPP could progress through multiple events.

Have fun reading through these. It should give you a good sense of the prelaunch sequence and the various stages of a flight.