Because of the very short deadline, the high altitude capsule will have a simple design and will re-use flight proven technologies. However this opportunity gives the students who worked on Furiosity another shot at flying their experiments.

I am working hard to demonstrate how to build and launch a “Near Space” balloon from scratch within 2 weeks. Launch is scheduled for this weekend!

T minus 5 is a series of short talks in the Ignite format. Each speaker gets 5 minutes to talk, with 20 slides that rotate automatically every 15 seconds. It’s a fun format that’s more like karaoke than giving a presentation. Forgive my nervousness.

A HQ version can be found here.

My third launch was entitled Furiosity. The purpose of this mission was to build a cheap and modular platform to easily and quickly send payloads to high altitude.

It was based on 2 modules: A system module and a payload module. The system module included 2 GPS trackers, a solar powered APRS transmitter, a sensor data logger and 3 cameras. The payload module contained the experiments built by 2 teams of students from Valley Christian High School in Dublin, CA

Furiosity was launch from the pacific coast near Pescadero, CA. It followed the predicted flight path and reached an altitude of almost 119,000ft. At which point, the balloon burst and the capsule fell back down to earth at an unusual fast speed. More than 180mph. It only started to really slow down at 50,000ft. It fell 100,000ft in 15 minutes. We followed its trajectory until all communications suddenly stopped at 9000ft.

Despite intensive ground search, I was not able to locate it.

Flight Path from launch to last signal received

Furiosity breaking 100,000ft

Hardware

Flight Data

The fast descent seems to indicate a parachute entanglement. We were using a 1600g weather balloon. Bigger and heavier than the 1200g balloon used in my previous flights. The balloon never completely bursts, it’s possible it collapsed the parachute or that it got tangled up with the parachute.

The parachute system did not completely fail as the fall rate at 8000ft was about 25mph.

Vertical Speed (mph) vs Altitude (ft)

Experiments

• Experiment 1:
  High-Altitude Radiation Repercussion Yields (HARRY)  by Jarrod Poston

Intro: HARRY will demonstrate the mutational effects of radiation on produce, particularly plant seeds. This will later give us insight on measures that will need to be taken to protect plant life while being transported in the upper atmosphere. If in the future scramjets, aircraft that will make traveling shorter by jumping into the upper atmosphere or space, are used then this test on the effects of high-altitude radiation will be critical in showing that you need or do not need technology to protect organic cargo from the effects of high-altitude radiation.

Description: HARRY will be conducted using a high-altitude weather balloon to carry a capsule containing it. Inside the capsule will be a diverse range of different seeds held in their own sterile, plastic bags of the same size. On the earth there will be another set of seeds held in sterile, plastic bags of the same size for the same amount of time in the same amount of light. After the radiation exposed seeds return to Earth, both sets of bags will be opened, physical appearances on the outside and inside will be examined, and the left over seeds from each group will be planted. All seeds from the same species will be exposed to the same conditions, nutrition, and water. The plants will be observed during the plant life cycle to see if there are any distinct differences between the radiated and non-radiated plants. Even after reproduction the plants and their offspring will be observed and data compiled. In the end, the data will be charted and analyzed, and a conclusion will be drawn.

Set-up:

1. Problem-Are seeds affected by high-altitude radiation?
2. Hypothesis-I believe that the radiated plants will have some apparent mutations, while their offspring will have more mutations.
3. Experiment-As described in the “Description” above.
4. Materials-Small plastic bags, labels, pots, soil, water (and sunlight), nutrients, table space, microscope, microscope slide materials, lab knifes, weather balloon, and capsule.
5. Control-Seeds in sterile, plastic bags of the same size.
6. Variable-Radiation.
7. Data-Will be plant looks, including the following; disfigurations, color, height and other dimensions, and offspring physical characteristics as listed beforehand, plus, ability to reproduce.
8. Conclusion-TBD. Will be published and maybe used in a Science Fair.

End: This experiment should help us answer the question of how plants are affected by high-altitude radiation, and it should lead us to many more questions to be answered in the future.

• Experiment 2
  Cosmic ray capture by Tiffany Lee and Christine Chen

·       Requirements: We require rolls of ultra-sensitive film (1600 ISO and 3200 ISO) as well as a lightproof container to prevent the damaging of the film. The lightproof container will be a Delta 1 Light Tight Safe-T-Bag. The effects of temperature should not affect the results of the experiment.

·       Hypothesis: Due to the balloon’s near-space elevation, gamma rays, which are blocked by Earth’s atmosphere, should be captured by the high-sensitive film, as well as other rays such as X rays & alpha and beta particles. The lightproof bag should properly prevent any light from damaging the film; while, the radiation that we hope to “catch” should be able to penetrate through the lightproof bag well enough that we can observe the effects of radiation upon the film.

·       Expected results: As a result of radiation that the film is exposed to, we expect to see some “points: or traces of radiation from which we can analyze the markings and determine which type(s) of radiation our film was exposed to and “captured”.

Sensor data

The only sensor data retrieved was sent by radio during the flight. (Time is in UTC)

Battery voltage (in Volts) of the radio transmitter

 Temperature (in degrees Celsius) inside the transmitter enclosure

We would think that the 2h ascent would cool the capsule to its lowest temperature. It’s interesting to see that during the descent (The balloon burst at 20:17 UTC = 1:17pm PST) the friction of the cold air cooled the capsule even more. (Above 15,000ft, the air is usually colder than 33 degrees F (0 degree C)))

Pictures

The system module

The payload module

Filling the weather balloon

Activating the trackers

Checking the telemetry

Recovery

Landing predictions

We lost contact 2h20 into the flight at 8800ft. Based on our predictions, it landed in a fairly dense farmland. Without accurate GPS coordinates, we were not able to locate it.

Conclusions

• Bad mounting between the capsule, the parachute and the balloon is the most likely cause for the parachute failure and very fast fall rate.
• We can only imagine the chaos of the descent. At such speed, the solar panels probably broke and a severe spin could have disconnected the radio antenna or the power source of the GPS transmitters.
• A compact positioning system such as a Spot tracker or a cell phone would have survived the fall and communicated the landing location. APRS transmitters are good for live telemetry only.
• The solar panels made the capsule unstable by design.
• The Burst, Descent and Landing phase of a high altitude launch has many similarities with the Entry, Descent and Landing phase of a space probe.
  It’s the most critical phase and it should dictate the capsule design and layout.

My main goal is to perfect a modular high altitude balloon bus: A simple , low-cost, general purpose high altitude platform able to carry a variety of payloads. It will allow more launches for less money. I will primarily focus on designing and building the bus. I would like another team to work on the payload(s). The latter will be flown free of charge.

I am currently trying to partner up with a high school. I’d love to involve some students, give them the opportunity to fly a small experiment and get excited about space! The next mission is entitled Furiosity and is scheduled for launch in November.

Update (12/01/11):

I have been able to create a partnership with Valley Christian High School in Dublin, CA. I cannot give all the details yet but some students will work on a couple payload systems for my next launch.  I have pushed the launch back to February to allow them to work on it. More details to come in December.

Description

The main difference with MSP-1 resides in the tracking system. I got the technical radio operator license in order to get a HAM radio call sign. My call sign is KJ6MUD. I was then able to use an APRS tracking system. I chose the Byonics Micro-Trak 8000 FA for its simplicity and light weight. The radio transmitter was connected to the Byonics GPS4 which does not have the 60k ft altitude limit.

Tracking the payload after the launch was very easy and accurate. It was set to send its position every minute.

Flight Path from launch to landing

MSP-2 at its highest altitude

All trackers worked very well, each showing the same data.

Hardware

Flight Data

Sensors

The computer system did not work as planned. The data from the external temperature sensor and photo resistor does not make any sense. It could be due to a bad mounting (no protection against the wind and the sun…).

The micro-controller had an operating temperature of -40 to +185 °F (-40 to +85 °C) but the internal temperature sensor stopped working at -4°F (-20°C ). It had been thoroughly tested at low temperatures. It could be due to hardware failure (wire disconnection?).

The internal temperature sensor stopped working during the descent.

The camera sensors worked the whole time.

 (Temperature in °C)

Battery Voltage (in mV)

This is actually quite surprising. I thought that 3600mV was the hard deck for Canon cameras. But I wrote an intervalometer  script in ubasic to disable the LCD and take pictures every 10 seconds. Disabling the LCD had a substantial impact on the battery life.

The camera battery lasted 4h20min and took 1314 pictures. The standard battery life was 260 pictures!

Pictures

The ascent:

Travis AFB

The San Francisco Bay Area from 95500 ft:

South Bay

San Francisco (You can guess the Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge)

North Bay

Sacramento Valley

Recovery

MSP-2 landed after a 2h10min flight. It landed in a wind farm, east of Livermore, CA.

Despite having the GPS coordinates, when typed into the Google maps application, it did not return the location entered but the location of the closest road, several hundred yards away. We couldn’t find it the first day, I had to come back the next day.

When it landed, the winds got so strong (40+mph), the payload got dragged about 200 yards uphill.

What is left from the balloon. It never completely bursts:

The lines are twisted all the way down and the GoPro Camera is gone:

Despite the scotch tape and the super-lock strips, most of the devices are now moving free.

Conclusions

• Tracking MSP-2 was easy and reliable. (Using APRS was definitely the way to go)
• Recovering a Near Space Balloon is always hard; Start your pursuit as soon as possible. Do not trust your smartphone. You need a laptop with Internet connection.
• The descent is a very rough ride. You need to secure the critical devices very well (trackers, tracker batteries, Gopro…). Since the capsule can land in any position, it is necessary to set the Spot tracker in a gimbal system.
• The computer system and sensors need to be soldered all together
• You definitely need to be at least 2 people to launch a high altitude balloon

My most sincere thanks to my friend TJ without whom I would not have been able to make it.

The external temperature sensor failed but I recorded the values from the camera temp (Celcius) and voltage sensors over time (minutes):

Temperatures from the Camera sensors

Voltage from the Camera sensor

The Canon camera and GoPro video-camera stopped working mid-flight because the batteries died. The voltage drops are due to the flash (while still on the ground). It should have been disabled.

The GoPro is still functioning very well. So are all the other trackers and computer systems. The Canon Camera’s video mode and on/off button are not working anymore. It is still able to take pictures with normal quality.

The communication cutoff is due to the camera module being placed directly above the tracking module. With no satellite acquisition both devices stopped transmitting any position report (even if the phone had good GSM reception).

The bad mounting and the very thin shroud lines induced the payload spin.

All in-flight pictures:

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The first thing to know is that it is legal. It’s regulated by the FAA under Part 101 Subpart D of their regulations.

If you read the whole Part 101 regulation you’ll notice at the very start that the regulation only applies to unmanned balloons with payloads heavier than 4 pounds. Note that  you should still follow all of the rules in Subpart D to make the experience as smooth as possible.

I was a little worried about talking with the FAA. Especially since I was not sure of the phone number and requirements.

If you were to send a big balloon to Near Space, you would have to contact the right ATC (air traffic control) office. But in our case, the ATC office doesn’t actually have anything to do with small unmanned balloons.

What you need to do is create a NOTAM (Notice To Airmen).

NOTAMs are notifications issued for hazardous reasons, such as:

• Air-shows,
• Parachute jumps
• Closed runways
• Erupting Volcanos
• …

Who do I need to call?

The ATC office I talked to gave me the phone number for Prescott Flight Service Station (877-487-6867).

I believe that they handle all the NOTAM reporting for the West side of the US. Where does West start? No idea, you should call your ATC office to make sure. I know that many people launching  balloons from different states (CA, UT, NV, …) called that specific office.

What does the FAA need to know?

What they ask you differs from one person to another.

What they asked me was:

• Date and time of the launch ?(You need to notify the FAA between 24 hours and 6 hours before the launch)
• Location of the launch? (City, States + GPS coordinates in both Decimal Degree and DMS formats). Converter can be found here.
• How far it is from any major city, airports, air force base? (It needs to be 5 miles away from everything)
• What is the ascent rate?

That was it for me. It was pretty straightforward.

However depending on who you talk to, be prepared to be asked:

• At what time will it reached 60,000ft up?
• At what time will it reached 60,000ft down?
• At what time will it land?
• Where will it land?

Theoretically, you should also notify the NOTAM station when you actually reach 60k feet up and down, if you lose communication with your balloon, and when your payload has landed. Realistically, no one cared when I called and that was fine by me.

Why 60,000ft? Because most of the air traffic flies below this altitude.

How to choose your launch location and predict the flight’s trajectory?

When looking for your launch site, you need to think about 3 main factors:

1. You must not have any fence, phone pole, electric pole, tall tree around you.
2. You must take into consideration the winds (when you fill the balloon and during the flight) which can carry your payload up to 200 miles away.
3. You must take into consideration the estimated landing area.
4. You must take into consideration the estimated flight path.

1) You really do not want all your work to end up stuck in a tree or attached to a 100ft high electric line.

2) This is critical. There are 2 web tools: This one and that one. Their prediction are, of course, not 100% similar or accurate but they will give you a good idea of the flight direction.

3 & 4) Remember that you need to be able to recover the payload quickly (Batteries might die) and be able to receive signals from the landing location. Avoid highly populated areas or areas with lakes, mountains or dense vegetation.

Note that  you need to make sure your launch site is more than 5 miles away from any airport/AFB.

Against all odds, I recovered my first high altitude balloon (MSP-1) 26 days after its launch.

I launched it on December 31st 2010 and thought I had lost it. But out of the blue, on January 25th 2011 at 7:42am, I received a manual Check/In message from the SPOT messenger sent with MSP-1.

The location reported was: 38.00134 , -120.80861. About 60 miles south east from our launch site. I scrambled a recovery operation the next day to find it.

Once arrived, my assumptions were confirmed: it was a private property used to breed cows. I went to the closest farm to inquire about the balloon and get their permission to look for it. After waiting one hour and a half and seeing no one, I started to hike up towards the location reported. I quickly understood that cows do not like to be disturbed, especially when their calves are around.

As I was walking downhill and reaching the estimated position, I saw no signs of my balloon and started to despair… until I spotted the red fabric of the parachute.

Note the pieces of Styrofoam everywhere. They are too small and spread out to be due to the impact.

MSP-1 used a 6 foot wide parachute for a descent rate inferior than 15ft/s. Even if it landed hard on the only rock of the field, it would have not have created so much damage.

The Spot messenger was hanging out of the tracking module’s remains by a piece of scotch tape. You can also see what was the on-board computer system.

The payload was divided in two parts. The camera module and the tracking module.

The first was almost intact, just covered with the usual dirt and mud after 26 days in a field. The tracking module was however completely destroyed. I found pieces of Styrofoam 20 ft away from each other. Moreover I found the USB battery charger, a USB key and some cables several feet away from each other and they had been pushed into the ground.

So the only explanation I have is that the cows trampled on it a lot. It freed the SPOT messenger which somehow sent me a message.

I retrieved the SD cards and log files and here are the results: The balloon flew 96 minutes before it burst. With a theoretical ascent rate of 320m/min. We reached over 100,000 ft (30km) high.

A few seconds after the launch

Under the clouds

Above the clouds

Facing the sun at max altitude
(Note how low the sun is. It’s 4pm in December)

Facing East getting dark

At 100,000ft #1

At 100,000ft #2

Snapshot #1 from the on-board video camera

Snapshot #2 from the on-board video camera

The balloon burst and is now hanging from the payload

Some pictures are blurry because the payload was severely spinning  the whole time. Despite everything, most of the equipment (cameras, trackers, main PCB) can be re-used, which will be a huge cost relief for MSP-2.

I have a lot of open questions right now:

• Why did the camera stopped working on the way down?
• Why did the computer system stopped recording the external temperature?
• Why was payload spinning so badly?
• Why did the transmissions stop before the launch?
• …

It will take me some time to collect and analyze all the data and understand what exactly happened but this maiden flight brings a lot of knowledge and exciting new opportunities!

I received at 7:42am a manual Check/In message from the SPOT messenger sent with MSP-1.

The location reported is: 38.00134 , -120.80861. About 60 miles south east from our launch site.

The location really is in the middle of nowhere. It’s in the middle of an unworkable field 1.5 mile away from the nearest paved road. There is a dirt road about half a mile away. This area is protected all along by a fence and I have seen cows on Google street view archives which makes me think that it’s a private property used for livestock farming.

Fortunately there are only 3 farms around including one less than 2 miles away.

So my plan is:

1. Go directly to this farm tomorrow morning.
2. Ask if they found the payload
3. If not, whose field it is and ask its owner
4. If the owner has not found it, ask to check out the location
5. If not found at the location, ask at 3rd Farm
6. If the 3rd farm has not found it, post reward poster with contact information

I hope to have more news tomorrow evening.

• Program a system with servo to push the camera’s shutter automatically or remotely
• Program the camera to take pictures automatically

The latter is by far the easiest way to take pictures in Near Space.

The most famous way to program your camera is to use CHDK. CHDK (Canon Hack Development Kit) is basically a firmware enhancement software allowing you to control additional features and options of your camera.

The tool supports a lot of Canon digital cameras. So you really want to use a Canon camera. You can find the supported list here.

Note that it’s an enhancement tool, it is non-permanent and non-destructive. You load it from your SD card and it makes no actual changes to your camera and firmware.

Installing CHDK is pretty straightforward if you have an SD card of 4GB or less. You can find the step by step instructions here.

CHDK was created to run on FAT partitions and SD cards that are higher than 4 GB run on FAT32 partitions. For 8GB SD card or larger, things get more complicated. You can find how to install it here.

Note that despite all my best efforts, I have not been able to make it work on my 8GB SD card. It just would not work. (Maybe due to my SD Card brand…)

Once installed, you can create a script to take pictures with the desired settings every X seconds until the SD card is full or until the battery dies. You can find some intervalometer scripts here. Another interesting feature is that you can save the battery voltage and the different temperatures recorded by the camera sensors (optical elements , battery and charge coupled device (CCD)) in a log file. More info under get_temperature.