Balloons

For each balloon we launch, we need to design and assemble a payload and attach it to a suitably-sized parachute and balloon. This post covers the design and implementation of each Casa de Balloon payload.

For technical details about how how we designed our payloads and sized our balloons and parachutes, take a look at the How to Pack and How to Fly blog posts.

Table of Contents:



Launch 1: "Learning Launch"


Launch Goal: Get our feet wet with small, light, simple payloads. This was our very first launch — we weren't even sure this would work!

Basic Balloon 1


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • The Z992 GPS was not reliably acquiring a fix, so we had no tracking during the flight.
  • We accidentally under-inflated the balloon and had a 3-4 hour flight as a result, instead of the ~2 hour flight we expected.
  • Our app failed to reacquire a GPS fix on the ground, but Android Device Manager checked in and helped us locate our payload.




Basic Balloon 2


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • This worked magnificently!
  • As expected, phone GPS only tracked up to 60k feet.




Takeaways






Launch 2: "Fancy Photography Launch"


Launch Goal: Bigger balloons, heavier payloads, better cameras, and radio tracking. This was the first launch in which we used real cameras rather than relying on camera phones. We also tried radio tracking on this one (in parallel with phone GPS).

Basic Balloon 2


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • Overinflated. It burst at a lower altitude, resulting in a shorter flight.
  • We'd been including the toe warmers to raise the temperature in the payload (for better battery life and electronics functionality), but this time we suspected they were the cause of condensation on the phone camera lens.




GoPro Balloon


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • We forgot the toe warmers on this one, but it didn't make a difference.
  • We lost GPS radio signal after a couple minutes (using standard 1/4 wave antennas on TX and RX).
  • We had two parallel methods of GPS tracking — the radio signal, which was only sending out a signal and not logging GPS data locally (and which signal we lost), and the phone GPS, which stopped above 60k feet.




NEX-3N Balloon


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • Also forgot the toe warmers on this one, and it also didn't make a difference.
  • Also lost the GPS radio signal after a couple minutes (using standard 1/4 wave antennas on TX and RX).
  • Five lightly-used Ultimate Lithiums worked fine in the NEX-3N, but five new ones produced too high a voltage and the camera refused to operate. We had to swap out new ones for used ones right before launch.




Takeaways


  • Photos and video from real cameras look amazing! So much better than phone cameras.
  • Ditch the toe warmers. They add no value and potentially cause condensation problems.
  • Have to use better antennas for radio tracking.
  • Should locally log GPS results from the radio tracker so we can retrieve that data later.
  • Put a voltage regulator for bigger cameras instead of relying on "close enough" direct battery power.




Launch 3: "Sunrise Launch"


Launch Goal: Capture a sunrise! This was a dawn launch. We also used better antennas for the radio tracking in the hopes of not losing the signal this time.

NEX-3N Night Balloon


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • The 6x battery holder was very loose, and the batteries popped out upon landing impact.
  • The uBlox GPS stopped tracking above 60k feet.
  • Ground tracking with a 433MHz Yagi antenna worked amazingly — we never lost radio contact.




EOS-M Night Balloon


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • The MagicLantern custom intervalometer module failed to override camera auto shutter settings (despite it working previously in a test run).
  • The camera batteries also popped out on landing impact.
  • The lid to camera box was lost.
  • The uBlox GPS also stopped tracking above 60k feet.
  • But radio tracking worked perfectly in this balloon as well!




Takeaways


  • Morning twilight photos are the best!
  • Use more tape on everything. Batteries, lids, EVERYTHING.
  • Test custom camera firmware modules over and over again.
  • Read the GPS module datasheet and make sure it's set so it will default to "Airborne" mode (in order to track above 60k feet).
  • Directional Yagi antennas rock and make for awesome stormchaser-style live tracking.




Launch 4: "Back to Basics Launch"


Launch Goal: Push our Android phones to the limit! In every other launch, the phone GPS had stopped working at the 60k-foot altitude limit. This was the first launch in which we used our patched Android phones to get around this. On this launch, we hoped our phone hack would allow us to track up to 100,000 feet!

Balloon Chuva


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • The GoPro Hero 4 overheated and stopped recording after 5 minutes (long before the payload was even launched), so we got no usable footage.
  • The iRulu U1S (Mediatek chipset) stopped tracking above 60k feet. 
  • Everything else worked as expected.




Balloon Virgina


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • The GoPro Hero 4 also overheated.
  • The Nexus S refused to boot with fresh batteries. We had to boot off used batteries and then hot-swap fresh batteries using parallel packs.
  • The Nexus S patched GPS drivers worked flawlessly and tracked up to 100,000 feet.
  • The GPS Tracker logged inconsistently, possibly because it was sharing a power bus with phone.





Balloon Juan


Bill of Materials:


Notes:
  • The GoPro Hero 4 also overheated.
  • The Samsung GC100 Galaxy Camera patched GPS drivers also worked flawlessly and tracked up to 100,000 feet.
  • The GPS radio tracker also logged inconsistently.




Takeaways


  • Android hardware is amazing!
  • The patched binary GPS drivers are awesome and make for the perfect balloon tracking payload.
  • The GPS Trackers should have dedicated power supplies.
  • GoPro Hero 4 Blacks are trash — we now refer to them as NoGos because of their total failure. 




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1 comment:

  1. UnknownOctober 22, 2016 at 10:04 AM

    If you keep balloons in too much cold or in heat it will lose its blooming. It can burst also. Besides,balloons are made or rubbers and other materials which needs specific amount of pressure,heat for processing which requires Weather Measuring Instruments & station.

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