Welcome to space.1337arts.com — Project Icarus, home of the original $150 near-space launch!
UPDATE: 8/7/10 We have created a forum. If you have questions, comments, or just want to show your near-space launch, post HERE!
UPDATE: 5/12/10 Check out grassrootsmapping.org! We’re helping citizens to use balloons, kites, and other simple and inexpensive tools to produce their own aerial imagery of the spill… documentation that will be essential for environmental and legal use in coming years.
UPDATE: 10/30/09: Want to do it yourself? Visit GUIDE, a compilation of detailed information regarding what we did for our launch.
Click Here for archive of updates
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***CAUTION/DISCLAIMER: Launching things into the stratosphere can be DANGEROUS! Please contact the FAA before trying any launches (even if they are under 4 lbs.) to make sure your vehicle won’t be entering restricted airspace and PLEASE check the University of Wyoming’sBalloon Trajectory Predictor(or a similar website) to make sure you balloon won’t be landing in the city/a populated area where it might cause significant damage. Also, be sure to test your balloon’s terminal velocity for descent before launching. We tested our parachute by putting eggs inside of our styrofoam box and tossing the box off of a 5 story building. We were not satisfied with the landing speed of our box until the eggs did not break upon the box’s impact.
About Project Icarus
We are a group of MIT students seeking to share the artistic aspects of science with others. On Sept. 2, 2009, we launched a digital camera into near-space to take photographs of the earth from high up above. (see “Flight”)
Several groups have accomplished similar feats (see “Other Launches”), but as far we know, we are the first group ever to:
(1) Complete such a launch on a budget of $150 total. All of our supplies (including camera, GPS tracking, weather balloon, and helium) were purchased for less than a grand total of $150.
(2) Create a launch vehicle without the use of any electronic hacking. We used off-the-shelf items exclusively (i.e., no electronic chips or soldering) to create our launch vehicle.
The results were fantastic. Our ultra low-budget balloon went 17.5 miles high into the uppermost parts of the stratosphere and returned 5 hours later. We tracked the device with GPS and found it some 20 miles away from the launch site.
Check us out on CNN, FOX, ABC! Click here to watch the Fox video, Click here to watch the CNN video. Click here to watch the ABC video
Project Icarus Details:
| Who | Oliver Yeh , Justin Lee, Eric Newton |
| Launch Date/Time | September 2nd, 2009, 11:45 EST |
| Launch Location | Sturbridge, MA - 42.12074, -72.06233 |
| Impact Location | Worcester, MA - 42.25504, -71.71943 |
| Distance Traveled | ~20 miles |
| Altitude Achieved | 98,000 feet, 17.5 miles |
| Helium Used | ~65 cubic feet |
| Weight | ~800g, 28oz |
| Camera | Canon A470 /w chdk open source firmware |
| Batteries | 4 Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA Batteries |
| GPS Reciever | Motorola i290 Prepaid Cellphone (“Boost Mobile”) |
| Tracking Software | Accutracking, Instamapper |
| Flight path | Google Earth kml |
| FAA regulation | Legal as long as payload is under 4 pounds |
**Below is a video for people who cannot access Youtube (e.g., people in China)
有创意,我喜欢`
good，they are great.
i am a highschool student from HEBEI CHINA.i saw yuor very creativy low cost balloon transportation in a magazine named sfw(science fiction world 科幻世界).all my calssmates and i admire the great idea from you,and we used it as an example in our speech in class.
expecting more new experiments.
Me,too.
suprised!
but we are not the same city,I read that magazine,too.
I love it.
MY qq numver is 973005343.I hope maybe someday you can see it,then we can be friends.
by the way,I watched the “the big bang theory’.that’s funny.
Ron,again.
I come from china,I am a reader of <>,you idea is very very good!it likes “KongMing”light.can we e-mail to each other?this is my e-mail:sunzhongyang1234@126.com
Do you have QQ?if you have,Q me!
QQ:244885051
there are three words in ,they are SFW
what‘s wrong with it!
Amazing
it’s amazing.
Good work!
cool
cool
You are very good
Simple means makes a great difference!!!
All scientific studies and experiments should be applauded, but near space experiments that these MIT students performed are not new. They’ve been done for over twenty years by scientists, some associated with NASA. They get FAA clearance, calculate where the balloons will land,and have volunteers retrieving them and reuse packing and other things in the experiements (No trash Greenies). Emergency personnel throughout the States participate in some of these experiments using radios and cameras on balloons for practice in case of a national emergency where telephones and other methods of communications might not be working. What’s new isn’t….and the Japanese tried using such balloons as a weapon during WWII.
Wow Wow WOW! Now THATS an 733t art! Ok just two things I want to add to this already wonderful project.
1. I think you must have thought of pointing the camera downwards too, but it can be done in another project. If I was earning I would have donated 150$ at this second. (I have a thing with art+ technology+ human experience).
2. A small stabilization technique. Enclose the camera in a restricted pendulum device. It should rotated on a single horizontal axis, gravity is the key. The other axis rotations must be locked. Hence, you can get stable horizontal pics. Weight problem? Use wooden/plastic ice picks, or something. You guys can think of the rest…
Again, well done!
Hey.. So we’re some students in canada who want to try this experiment… you made some suggestions here for the improvement on the original project… Can you explain it a little more (maybe ‘dumb it down a bit’ as we’re all bio students??? Thanks!
呵呵，不错哦
amazing works
真了不起，佩服。
How did you mount the camera? Did you have a window between the camera and the atmosphere??? thanks much – tm
Please stop the nonsense all we need is more junk in the sky so more hazards to air travel. FFS
很好。很强大