As a backup I am having the balloon send me text messages with the GPS information. It's not perfect, but it should work. Hopefully there will be pretty pictures of space posted here tonight, otherwise I'm going to purchase as many explosive fireworks as I can just to destroy all evidence of my failure hahaha!
UPDATE!!!
The balloon is well on its way. Arhan, my dad, and I are waiting in our hotel in Billings for some final position to be reached. At last record the balloon was at 46.082375,-107.913120. The altitude from the GPS doesn't seem to be working as it is constantly reporting 4092.34 feet. If it would have been at that altitude during its flight there were several 6000 feet tall mountains that it would have crashed into. Some launch pictures and video are below. I'll post up the pictures from the recovered payload when it happens. Wish us luck! I'm still angry at T-Mobile...
A little preflight action with Luke and Arhan
Launch time, Farmer Jim is standing in the back. He just showed up and was very curious and friendly!
Luke, you're a mad genius! Sorry I missed all the action. Any plans for a repeat effort?
ReplyDeleteI've considered a second attempt, but I'm waiting until December to make my decision on that. If it happens I will launch from the same location next July or August and I'll have a long range Zigbee radio to have constant communication with the balloon. Funny thing is that the guys from Sparkfun Electronics launched a balloon in Colorado about the same time as I was launching mine and we both suffered the same fate.
ReplyDeleteSo what do you think happened? Was it failure of the GPS above 60,000 ft? I ask because I am also involved in a high altitude balloon project and we are currently spec'ing out GPS units, and the 407 is the one I had in mind to use.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be nice to ask you a few more questions about your project too, and maybe you could help my project.
Hi pericles. I think there were three problems with my flight. The first is that I lost communication at about 70,000 ft altitude. I was getting good GPS readings all along, so it definitely wasn't GPS failure. Second, I'm assuming one of two things happened, the electronics got too cold or the balloon drifted out of cellular range when it came back to a reasonable altitude. Lastly I didn't have enough battery life, which was a mute point since I lost communications anyway.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to do this project again I would get a 9Xtend zigbee radio set with high gain antennas so I could track the balloon all the way to burst altitude. I would still use the cellular module as a backup, since it will be hard to use the radio link at low altitudes (poor line of sight at low alt). Next I would insulate the electronics a bit more and do more cold testing in the freezer. I didn't have much test time with this launch, so it was a bit of a gamble. Lastly, I was way under my weight budget so I would at least double my battery size so I have more chance of catching a text message or radio transmission while searching for the downed payload. I hope this helps and feel free to email me if you want more (lwardens@zagmail.gonzaga.edu).