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
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 Our balloon popped at around 93000 feet, beginning its 40 minute descent
|  The falling balloon
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Simply amazing…inspiration + creative minds + thinking outside the box = genius. I hope the beer cooler wasn’t harmed in the making of those pictures
Awesome…
Absolutely amazing job guys !
Congratulations on the flight of the Icarus. Your concept was simple and it worked. The pictures are really great and it would be fantastic to see more.
Well played, sirs!
It is amasing!
You have done well.
Gratulation from Korea!
Hello,
I wanted to say congratulations to you, first because of your “Beautiful Minds”, and second for what you have done. It is impressive, revolutionary and creative.Wish the best for you.
Best Regards
from IRAN
Awesome
You guys are cool. Congratulations
Awesome!! Thanks for the amazing story! God Bless You!
Did you get prior FAA class B airspace clearence? If not, you have violated FAA regulations and should be subjected to fines.
Wonderful. I think this is a wake up call for NASA, they should try their best to cut huge expenses for their space program and try something economical instead of spending millions of millions of dollars.
From 93000 ft. high, I imagine this could do some damage or hurt someone back here on on earth. Has anybody done their homework on this?
Two words, “October Sky”
Awesome guys, congrats!
I can’t believe you guys actually found it! good job! lol
What if it would have hit a passenger jet and crashed it? This was stupid, dangerous and possibly illegal!
Always some Jack A** looking at the Negative. What IF !!! Excellent Job Guys !!
Passenger jets run into thousands of birds every year that have much greater mass than a camera and a beer cooler. And what happens to the jets? Nothing. They are made of titanium. The birds, though, they are vaporized…
Don’t keep up with the news much, eh kirby?
The whole idea is very sexy
so the terminal volocity of a beer cooler and camera is about 26.5 MPH??? 40 minutes to fall, it might have bin higher. Or you stopwatch is fast.
Great idea. But what happens if that beer cooler with cell phone and camera falls on someone’s car, head, house and causes injury. Just playing devil’s advocate, you seem smart, a chute shouldn’t be hard to whip up.
Awsome! When you’re green, you grow.. when you’re ripe… you rot! Keep growing guys! Keep growing!