The GPS cell phone we used to track the location of our vehicle lost reception soon after launch (at an elevation of ~2500 feet). Although we had expected to lose contact with the balloon, the altitude of “last-report” was much lower than expected.
After loss of electronic contact, we could continued to track the capsule visually for about half an hour until the glare of the sun prevented further viewing.
GPS information recorded in the flight logs reported a maximum altitude of 19,853 feet due to software limitations. With some simple approximations (linear extrapolation of velocity – a fair assumption justified after looking through flight trajectories of similar balloons), we estimated that our balloon achieved an altitude of about 93000 feet before returning to the earth. The balloon’s ascent took about 4 hours, and its descent took 40 minutes.
 Earth from 93000 feet. Long Island in the background.
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 Glowing from the sun
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 Our balloon popped at around 93000 feet, beginning its 40 minute descent
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 The falling balloon
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It surprises me!
Saw this page from the discovery magazine..keep it up..
Just fantastic! It is the big thinking that lets you save money and nature… and do wonders!
yea, saw this page from the disovery magazine as well. its interesting what you do. more pictures please!! haha
and of course, please keep it up!
wow! what a spectacular view,
just read about it on discovery mag 3/2010 issue, that’s amazing.
read about it on discovery mag 3/2010 issue, that’s amazing.
read about it on discovery mag March issue, that’s amazing.
man!!!! its awesome……
saw url from discovery magazines….
cool!!!
I read this from the Discovery Channel Magazine and they said to check these out! Feels so fantastic! And the experiment was really a huge success..
Incredible…
Wow great work
[...] Icarus [ VISIT :: FLIGHT PICTURES [...]
i just read the article about this on a Discovery Magazine…
wow!!!
it’s really great!
This is a great experiment. The only think I cannot figure out from your pictures is…. who took the pictures of the falling balloon and camera? If 1 camera was sent up….how did you get pictures of it falling?
[...] Sub-orbital pictures? Checkmate. Picture from [...]
Wow..love it..amazing!!