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
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
***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)
Whoa. That is one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen, especially because it looks like the sort of thing that would cost thousands, perhaps more, to accomplish! My friends at school would probably be interested in this project – if anyone could give a bit of advice on this project to me at cactusman193@yahoo.com , that’s be great, seems like the perfect project
.
What script did you use to get the combo of pictures and video in you camera?
Thanks
Where did you get the balloon and parachute. What model numbers? Thanks.
Wow great poject and I think the budget is not too expensive.
Absolutely AWESOME!
can you send me some tips about how you do it on my email, please
I really like your idea and i have already purchased all the stuff
hello geniouses out there trying to flash firmware on thier cameras.. makes better sense to take video no? you can extract stills after the fact.
This is seriously incredible! Such a low budget, and you did AMAZING things! Awesome!
Brothers!!!
Aquí é o Jeferson de São Paulo – Brasil. Achei muito boa a idéia de vocês. Vocês poderiam vender esta idéia para o Google. Assim poderiam tirar fotos em 360º graus do espaço, já pensaram??? Enquanto isso, que tal melhorar a imagem da camera para tirar uma foto maior?? Fica aí a idéia e continuem com o trabalho!!
Um abraço!!
Jeferson – São Paulo – Brasil.
whats icarus project
This is absolutely brilliant guys. You’d think that good old nasa with so much money and yet you did such an amazing job with such a small budget. Amazing
Hey, I’m curious. How did you determine the maximum altitude the balloon reached? Did the phone keep track of it?
Hello,I’m a mechanical engineering student at rutgers school of engineering and I’m interested in doing a project similar to yours.I would appreciate it if you emailed me back so I can ask you guys some questions.Thanks for your time.
Explain to me how your camera shows the earth with no interference, no snow, no green or red blur, while NASA’s camera, which has a funding of god knows how much money, LOOKS MORE LIKE A CAMERA FROM THE 1940′s !!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqN-KLOCS5k&feature=related This is a long video showing how they trick us, what are they hiding behind their “not so good camera views” ??
Hey guys, what are all the FAA regulations you guys had to go through?
very interesting video and a great project!
This is cool but time lapse is not nearly as cool as the father and son team that sent a GoPro video camera just as high. You can see much more than a slice of the horizon. These guys should have aimed the camera down so you can see the planet as opposed to just blue and then black. http://gopro.com/gopro-takes-another-ride-to-the-edge-of-the-earth/
This is better quality…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtXquYhY7wo
cool, I just think they had more control of the cameras movement it would have been a killer view. thanks for the idea:)