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)
Great story!
I was wondering how long the flight lasted. That is the one statistic not on your home page. Perhaps you can add an “Impact date/time” to complete your list of details.
Thank you and best wishes!
Dave
Clever idea, but can you imagine a bunch of these things floating around up there unregulated taking out planes, jets, and whatever. This type of experiment should be left to professionals.
I think MIT students are way more professional than any of us. One doesn’t get into MIT by being reckless and stupid.
Great experience,
I read a report on your experiment on the Swiss-German Newspaper “Tages-Anzeiger” http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/digital/mobil/Die-billigste-WeltraumExpedition-aller-Zeiten/story/26645091. Excellent!!!
But don’t miss the flight of “Solar-Impulse” under lead of Bertrand Piccard.
http://www.swisscom.ch/GHQ/content/Engagement/Verantwortung/Umwelt/Externe_Engagements/Solar_Impulse/Solar+Impulse.htm?lang=en
Kind rgds from Switzerland, Sandro
read about your project in a brasilian newspaper.
really great your job!
greetings from Brasil!!
Parabéns pelo projeto!!!
Congratulations!!!!
nice job!!
you are genius!!!
Olá! Gostaria de parabeniza-los pelo grande trabalho de mostra, principalmente que a ciência é um fato de conhecimento do que capital financeiro.
Um abraço!
@James
A470 camera on Ebay = $45, brand new
Accutracking service for those with phone already = $5 per month total cost.
Motorola i290 = 46.99 brand new, or $28.88 on Ebay also brand new
If you had bothered to read the Accutracking website at all, which you must have done to get the pricing on that particular package, you would know that the $109 package includes a phone, charger, software, and service for a month. But since you chose not to disclose that you are simply trolling. #FAIL
Also seen this in a Swiss newspaper (seems the Swiss are catching on to this) – and thinking about doing something similar, I guess the Swiss alps would make a beautiful view from a couple of miles overhead
Great job, keep that up!
Sou Brasileiro, moro em São Paulo, fiquei muito surpreso com estes dois garotos.
Muito bem amigos, vc´s tem futuro.
Parabens!!
hey! congratulations to your lowbudget project! I actualy realised a spacetransmiter for personaly messages to space by using the wlan tecnology, maybee we could stay in contact? I m artist as well.
best wishes from zurich switzerland
> http://www.svemir.eu
Awesome! Just read your project on seattletimes.com and will show it to my son to see what a little ingenuity can provide!!!
congratulations
Perfeito!
Vou mandar na minha língua Natal. Como são muito espertos, certamente conseguirão a coisa mais fácil do mundo, a tradução.
Vocês deram “show de bola”. Isto prova como uma boa idéia pode ser totalmente posta em prática e com um orçamento baixo.
Vocês incentivaram outras pessoas a realizarem o memso feito com um orçamento ainda menor.
Valeu.
Marcus Saióro – Rio de Janeiro – Brasil
Muito legal…
I would like to echo and say congratulations for job well done without millions of dollars of public money. It got me to thinking, whether or not you use a glider rather than a cooler program to return to the spot in which you launched it.
“Beauty will save the world”
Dostoievsky
Parabéns!!! Grande iniciativa, espero que possam desenvolver ainda muitas tecnologias para melhorar a vida das pessoas.
I find the whole project facinating. However, my only concern is the re-entry and the possible collision with an aircraft or a person on the ground. Did you have a guidance system with anti-collision features?