Revision as of 05:02, 12 November 2010

A collection of stuff about HacDC's near space initiatives, including the Hackerspaces In Space Contest entry (2010).

Current Status

We are currently planning the launch of Spaceblimp 3 (SB-3), more details to follow.

On Aug 7, 2010, we launched our first balloon: HacDC Spaceblimp 1. Its epic journey began well enough, but the antenna came loose somewhere around 60,000 ft and we never heard from it again. Until three months later, when a farmer found it in her field, called up a friend (who happened to be an engineer) and it came back home. The pictures are fantastic, but the telemetry data was lost -- it overwrote itself many times over before the batteries finally gave up.

Following (what we thought was) the loss of Spaceblimp-1, we scrambled and launched HacDC Spaceblimp 2 on Aug 21. It went flawlessly -- fast, light, and with good radio contact the whole way through. It may be the third fastest-ascending amateur radio balloon. We were disqualified from the Hackerspaces in Space competition because we went over budget, but they said we would have come in fourth if not. Sigh. But again, it was an inspiring success.

Spaceblimp-3 is due to go up Nov 13, with a much more involved payload. More cameras, HD video, more radios, an accelerometer, geiger counter, pressure sensor. Weight and price aren't constraints, so we're gonna use up our extra helium and get cool data.

GPS visualizations of balloon trajectory from the Flickr Group (made with GPS Visualizer http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/):

HacDC Spaceblimp Project:
Main Page	Press Page	First Launch (Found)	Second Launch (Successful)
Third Launch (Successful)	Fourth Launch (Successful)	Fifth Launch (3% short of goal)	Sixth Launch (Successful)	Seventh Launch (Successful)

HacDC Spaceblimp Team Contact Info:
[email protected]
Subscribe to the Spaceblimp email list

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 =About the HacDC Spaceblimp Project=
-* On Aug 7, 2010, we launched our first balloon: [[HacDC Spaceblimp 1]].  Its epic journey began well enough, but the antenna came loose somewhere around 60,000 ft and we never heard from it again. Until a farmer found it in her field, called up a friend (who happened to be an engineer) and it came back home, three months later.  The pictures are fantastic, but the telemetry data was lost -- it overwrote itself many times over before the batteries finally gave up.
+* On Aug 7, 2010, we launched our first balloon: [[HacDC Spaceblimp 1]].  Its epic journey began well enough, but the antenna came loose somewhere around 60,000 ft and we never heard from it again. Until three months later, when a farmer found it in her field, called up a friend (who happened to be an engineer) and it came back home.  The pictures are fantastic, but the telemetry data was lost -- it overwrote itself many times over before the batteries finally gave up.
 * Following (what we thought was) the loss of Spaceblimp-1, we scrambled and launched [[HacDC Spaceblimp 2]] on Aug 21.  It went flawlessly -- fast, light, and with good radio contact the whole way through.  It may be the third fastest-ascending amateur radio balloon.  We were disqualified from the Hackerspaces in Space competition because we went over budget, but they said we would have come in fourth if not.  Sigh.  But again, it was an inspiring success.