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The BallastHalo 4 balloon launch set out to test the ballast subsystem for a future transatlantic attempt. The aim was to maintain an altitude at approximately 25km for as many hours as possible. The balloon was launched at 3pm GMT 20th February 2010 from Cambridge, UK. The hope was to reach the 25km altitude that evening and staying at that altitude until sunrise. The heat from the sun would then cause the balloons altitude to increase until it bursts. Unfortunately it appears that the onboard GPS module failed shortly after launch (perhaps after entering the cloud in the video) and never recovered. The video was taken using a Canon PowerShot SX1 IS. The actual launch was fully zoomed out, but the last video of the balloon were at maximum optical zoom in. You can see just how far it was able to zoom in from the panning out at the end of the video (from balloon close-up to the view of the cloud it was about to glide into).
“Unfortunately it appears that the onboard GPS module failed shortly after launch (perhaps after entering the cloud in the video) and never recovered.” It failed when the ballast pump started pumping, and recovered when the ballast pump’s battery ran out, which was quite a lot shortly.
The ballast pump didn’t stop because with the GPS not working, the logic didn’t know when to turn it off (whoops!)