Launch: Success. Retrieval: Failure. Or, "A Lament for Balloon 1"

Farewell, Balloon 1. We hardly knew thee.

Here the camera looks back at us one last time, through its tiny hole in the side of the capsule.  Within moments it was out of view, off on a journey to the edge of space.

What did it see, peering down through the unforgiving cold?  Did the abyss above give it pause?  Did the fragility of the harbor below it really offer solace when faced with the awful reality of the universe?

Perhaps it never fell to earth at all.  Perhaps now, instead of hanging high in a tree amongst the green pines of Virginia, or standing silently in a lonely field, or even sailing solemnly out to sea, perhaps it floats above us still.  To confront so great a challenge as the heavens!  Ah!  This is the place for one so bold as Balloon 1!  We may meet again, friend, when the abyss comes for us as well.  We may meet again.

Launch! T+20 minutes!

We have liftoff!  The launch went without a hitch.  We are a bit worried about a slow ascent rate, but watching the balloon disappear was really satisfying. We are still tracking now.  There will be a tense 4 or 5 hours after it leaves range until we hope to get a new GPS location upon impact.  WOOOOOOO!!!!

Here are the actual GPS location data from the balloon after about 15 minutes.  Surprisingly it is following Route 29.

Here is the simulation data for 12 noon, with a ceiling of about 60000 feet.  Landing in Culpeper would be ideal!  You can see the simulation closely follows the real data for the first 15 minutes!

Excitement!  Thanks to Jonathan, Tyler and Stache for help with the build and purchasing components.  Also a shout out to Pete, who watched the lauch.

Update:  It's now 6:15pm, almost 6 hours since the launch.  Although our rate of ascent seemed a bit slow, we still expected the balloon to reach 60,000 in 5 hours, then fall for around an hour.  If the balloon's ceiling was closer to 24km, that would mean another hour of ascent, but it's hard to tell exactly.  As the sun sets, the likelihood of finding the payload becomes much smaller.  It may be that it landed in an area with no cell phone coverage, in which case we have to hope someone will find it and call us.


Here's the live GPS data; if we ever get an update it will show here:

GPS tracking powered by InstaMapper.com

Launch: April 3rd

This is quick update post.  I've bought the phone and set up the GPS tracking software.  Ginny and I went for a walk in the neighborhood, and the tracker worked fine.  Cell phone coverage in C-ville is very good, but it'll be a miracle if tomorrow we land somewhere with four bars.  Hopefully the decision against an external antenna won't bite us in the behind.

I also got the cooler, some string, some neon orange duct tape, some "Hothands" hand warmers.

The camera script works well.  I haven't made a final decision on shutter speed, and the fact that the LCD screen is broken doesn't help the testing.  The last big worry, other than landing in a skeet-shooting range, is battery life on the used camera.  It seems to be holding up, hopefully it will be able to take the 1600 shots we might need over the course of the flight.

See everyone at 10:30 tomorrow morning!

Update:  I've found the replacement battery I bought for the camera, and it has 900mAh, instead of the standard 700mAh.  I feel much better about the camera now.  If we can find this thing tomorrow afternoon, this will be epic.

Launch Soon?

This Saturday is a possible launch day.  It should be beautiful, but hope for low wind.  I've loaded CHDK onto our sacrificial Powershot SD400.  My next worry is battery life on this used camera, but I'm thinking about replacing the 4.3V rechargeable with 3 AA disposables.

Tomorrow I'll be testing the camera to see how the intervalometer works, and how long the battery will last.  I'll also play with some ISO and shutter settings to figure out the best way to get awesome shots.  If everything looks good, I'll buy the phone tomorrow.

Tyler has taken care of the parachute, and I'll grab a cooler, string and duct tape.  We'll be putting together the launch vehicle at the Physics building on Saturday morning.

The camera should hold 6000 shots on the highest pixel setting and lowest jpg setting, so we may be able to do a shot every 5 seconds.  Here's the script that I'll use in CHDK as an intervalometer:

rem Author - Keoeeit
rem Upgraded by Mika Tanninen
rem Time accuracy and shutdown for a710is by Viktoras Stanaitis
rem h-accuracy for delay, j-accuracy for interval
h=-1
j=-1755
@title Ultra Intervalometer
@param a Delay 1st Shot (Mins)
@default a 0
@param b Delay 1st Shot (Secs)
@default b 0
@param c Number of Shots (0 inf)
@default c 0
@param d Interval (Minutes)
@default d 0
@param e Interval (Seconds)
@default e 10
@param f Interval (10th Seconds)
@default f 0
n=0
t=(d*600+e*10+f)*100+j
if c<1 then let c=0
if t<100 then let t=100
g=(a*60)+b+h
if g<=0 then goto "interval"
for m=1 to g
 print "Intvl Begins:", (g-m)/60; "min", (g-m)%60; "sec"
 sleep 930
 next m
:interval
  n=n+1
  if c=0 then print "Shot", n else print "Shot", n, "of", c
  shoot
  if n=c then shut_down
  sleep t
  goto "interval"