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.
|
 Glowing from the sun
|
 Our balloon popped at around 93000 feet, beginning its 40 minute descent
|
 The falling balloon
|
 |
 |
 |
  |
[...] ver mais imagens do Projeto Ícaro, clique aqui. // Post a Comment [...]
Did you guy take pictures of deep space? Seems like I saw that on CNN when they did the story, but I don’t see any pics like that here. Was I mistaken?
This is one of the coolest thing I’ve heard in weeks! Greetings from Finland!
Cool!
Greetings to Nasa and others too: Good results don’t always need big budget
Delightful action. Imagine, what kind of observations could be possible with this kind of method?
Cool!!!!
Keep going on that kind creative project.
Nice Job!!!
420 posts
THATS THE COOLEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE. I CANT BELIEVE YOU GOT IT BACK TOO!!!!! ALL FOR 150$ AND ONE AFTERNOON. YOU ARE TWO SMART COOKIES
That was great !! Keep it up go higher do better!!!
http://www.tekniikkatalous.fi/viihde/article336314.ece
cool.
Just wondering why did they decide to use helium instead of hydrogen?
Hydrogen would have been both cheaper and more efficient ( lighter )
COOOOOOOOL
Wow. All I can say: “Thumbs up (in the NASA’s ass)!”
Would be interesting to experiment with a high quality DSLR camera and high quality optics (lets say Nikon D700 and 50 mm lens @ constant f/4). That should not weight more than 800-900g extra and would keep it within limits.
Increadable, you should to gain a Nobel Prize for Science…
Nice! Finland approves!
That was a great project. Mr. Moyer told us about it and showed us your site on the Internet. That must have been so cool watching it land. What scientific conference have you been asked to attend? We are all very proud of you. Thanks, Ms. Shelhamer, Mr. Moyer and Class
very good job!
[...] filled with helium 17.5 miles high into the uppermost parts of the stratosphere they captured images of the curvature of the [...]