Sector67 competed in the Hackerspaces in Space competition earlier this year. We launched two balloons lofted by hydrogen and posted details at Apollo67. The first balloon launched was a green dart whose objective was to return to earth as fast as possible (points scored based on launch to recovery time). Unfortunately weather conditions on the day of the launch were unfavorable, and the payload was never recovered or heard from again. . . . until now!
The remains of the payload were found in Grand Haven, Michigan in early February and mailed back to us today. We were able to recover all of the still images and video from the flight as well as GPS and altitude data from a custom Android application. Amazingly, after a through cleaning of the phone with alcohol it came alive today (despite drifting across and living in a lake for several months) and we were able to fully recover all information from the SD card and onboard memory. The phone was in perfect condition until the screen was cracked in an unfortunate fall during cleaning! The battery still works 😉
Here’s an animation of the altitude and position data:
Prepping for Launch:
Launch Video:
It’s believed that the battery died when it hit peak altitude (17,913 meters or almost 59,000 feet)
You can see a glance at the horizon in this video:
Science Friday (the NPR radio show) is doing a segment today about an 18-year-old who sent a Lego shuttlecraft to 115,000 feet with a balloon. Nice video.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/ (currently wrong video on segment page)
http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10435
–Davi