Students Take Pictures From Space On $150 Budget

An anonymous reader writes "Two MIT students have successfully photographed the earth from space on a strikingly low budget of $148. Perhaps more significantly, they managed to accomplish this feat using components available off-the-shelf to the average layperson, opening the door for a new generation of amateur space enthusiasts. The pair plan to launch again soon and hope that their achievements will inspire teachers and students to pursue similar endeavors."

Comments

This is hardly anything new

[Bruce Perens]

Groups like EOSS have been doing this for at least 30 years, probably more. It's very common for a balloon launch to be a featured event in a ham radio conference. Their budgets per payload are similar, although they are able to do more technical work than featured in the MIT students work and often design their own radios, command devices, etc. None of this, though, is out of the range of a dedicated amateur. Note that there is a software-defined GPS in development that might be the best way to get around the 20K foot altitude limit of consumer GPS devices. Its component cost is pretty low, despite the $495 cost charged for an assembled device at that site.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm? Keeping a camera functioning, then retrieving it, seems new.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[cptdondo]

But this is in range of a middle school science teacher. That's the beauty of it! Once you break the $500 dollar limit, our underfunded schools in the US can't afford it. Heck, the elementary school my kids go to was happy to received a $200 check I won at a local race. For $150, these kinds of parts can be built using donated stuff. Many people have cell phones they no longer use. Many people have digital cameras they don't use. I can see doing this with some donated materials for $100. Plus the technology is there - no custom built ham radios, just "ordinary" technology we all use on a daily basis. It brings space down to ordinary kids. It would be great if these guys provided drawings and what control they usd for the camera and see if we can launch this at our school.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Kira-Baka]

Some people provide better images too. The site I've linked even provides videos.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Bruce Perens]

This was in the range of a high-school teacher before. Indeed, there have been many high-school launches. Using donated parts doesn't really cut it. The camera has to be one of a few specific models that can run an Open Source download. The phone can't be just any one, unfortunately.

By the way, use of the phone at altitude violates FCC regulations and does a denial-of-service attack on cell sites because sites all of the way to the horizon are receiving that frequency.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. High-altitude balloon launches are actually, surprisingly, fairly common. If you visit the second hyperlink and click on the "other launches" sidebar link, you can find links to other groups who have done balloon launches in the past -- high altitude photography is nothing new. I think what's really striking about what these guys have done though is that they took all of their pictures for $150. The radio modems that we use for several of our GPS projects (non-flight) that require communication between a rover and a basestation cost several hundred dollars alone, and CDMA modems cost several thousands of dollars. Give them credit for creative problem-solving. I wouldn't have thought to do what they did. Also, their list of hardware is... ridicuously short and simple-looking -- makes me want to try it myself.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Rorschach1]

I think the hardware investment for my balloon project was about $300:

http://n1vg.net/balloon

I've got a new payload sitting here ready to go that's a lot cleaner and simpler, and has a 2-hour video capacity. Everything in the payload is off the shelf (granted, the radio/tracker is off my own shelf, it's one of my company's products) except for a DB9 connector and a few wires that took a few minutes to solder together. The housing is the top half of a magnum wine shipper, and all of the components (battery, radio, GPS) just wedge in between the foam pieces intended to hold the neck of the bottle. The camcorder is held in with rubber bands:

http://n1vg.net/images/payload1.jpg
http://n1vg.net/images/payload2.jpg
http://n1vg.net/images/payload3.jpg

The acrylic window that goes over the end took me about 3 minutes to fabricate on a CNC milling machine and could be easily and cheaply replicated.

It'd be cheaper to build a transmit-only version of this system, but having a receiver lets you do useful stuff like control a cutdown device. This particular payload doesn't have one yet, but it can be as simple as a 1-watt resistor that you drive at 3 watts for several seconds to melt through a Nylon or Spectra cord. Maybe an extra buck worth of hardware.

I might launch this thing as soon as next month if I can find the time. Possibly from the Mojave desert again, or maybe from the Cuyama Valley, a little closer to home. Ground crew and chase team volunteers are always welcome.

At some point I'd like to have a ready-to-fly kit to sell at a reasonable price to schools, along with enough instructional materials to get them started. I just don't have the time for it right now.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[QuantumLeaper]

Nice pictures and video over a lot more cash (possible to build for $500, they say) vs. under $150, I think the $150 wins, because of price alone.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Plunky]

By the way, use of the phone at altitude violates FCC regulations and does a denial-of-service attack on cell sites because sites all of the way to the horizon are receiving that frequency.

I guess, if they thought of it, they could set the phone to not transmit unless it was under a set height and falling. That could save battery power too..

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Bruce Perens]

Another thing they can do is use a part-15 or Amateur transmitter. Now that there is no Morse Code requirement, passing the lowest level of ham test is something you can do with a few hours study. And then you can have live TV from the balloon, and you can command it to cut down the balloon when you wish.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Rorschach1]

Hi Bruce! You going to DCC this month?

The altitude limit isn't universal, and seems to be dependent on how the manufacturer reads the regs. Off the top of my head, I know the Garmin GPS 18 and 18x (with current firmware) and the Trimble Copernicus work at over 100,000'. As far as I know, nothing from SiRF does unless you have special firmware, and good luck getting those guys to even talk to you. Here's a table with some test results:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/wallio/GPSrcvrsvs60kft.htm

I use the GPS 18x myself, but that's mostly because I stock them and in Garmin binary mode I get high resolution Z velocity data which I can use to monitor ascent rate. You can get by with something lighter and cheaper.

Scott
N1VG

Re:This is hardly anything new

[mabhatter654]

but you really don't need GPS until the device comes down anyway.. that was more about finding your pictures and you still have 20,000 feet to chase the balloon in.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Bruce Perens]

I will be in Norway, so I'm missing DCC. Thanks for the list. David Rowe has made progress on the new Codec initiative I was promoting. See this.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not new. Plenty of other Universities have student projects that do the exact same thing. A quick google yields several. The only reason people care about this one is because it's at MIT. For some reason, mass media considers it newsworthy to report things that happen at MIT, even if MIT was not the first to do it. It's not as sexy to report "University of Kentucky students take pictures from space on $150 budget".

Re:This is hardly anything new

[dintech]

Yes, I've got to say congratulations to these kids. What they did seems very, very cool.

But what about this?:

âoeImagine if the art kids and the science kids in high school got together to do something like [a space launch].â

Sounds like a certain geeky somebody has a crush on a hottie art school somebody....
Don't worry, we've all been there.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[dgatwood]

Well, that's an easy one. Use precisely guided rockets and explosives to carve her face on the surface of the moon....

Re:This is hardly anything new

[YrWrstNtmr]

It's not as sexy to report "University of Kentucky students take pictures from space on $150 budget".

Actually, I'd expect MIT students to do stuff like this. Podunk U students doing it would be more newsworthy.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[GameMaster]

Um, I think some people want to track how high their balloon went so they can work on improving their fine control. Some people want to push for the highest altitude possible while others want to aim for a specific altitude (for instance, there's a project trying to aim for the right jet-stream altitude to allow their balloon to travel across the Atlantic ocean). Both of those situations end up being well over the altitude limit imposed by many of the GPS manufacturers.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[xaxa]

chase team volunteers are always welcome.

How far might it go? I imagine the wind could push it a long way away, but are we talking 10s or 100s of km? The former is manageable, if it's the latter I'd have to be much more careful or it'd end up in the sea (Great Britain isn't that big).

Someone at my university attached a glider to a weather balloon, let it go to 80km altitude and had programmed the glider to find it's way back to "base" using GPS. I don't think it's online, unfortunately.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[shimage]

It's not new. There is a balloon class at the University of Washington. They launch a weather balloon with "payloads" designed (sort of, anyway) and built by students from an airport in the middle of nowhere (well, Central Washington) at the end of the class. The professors handle telemetry, which no doubt costs more than $150, but since the bandwidth is so low, they can't telemeter images anyway, so recovery is required. Incidentally, every payload has been recovered so far. Three or four years ago, an ambitious student that knew a bit more than most about digital electronics strapped a camera onto the payload just for shits and giggles (yes, self-powered and rigged to trigger every minute or so). The images he got back were pretty amazing, so after that the professors started offering extra credit for cameras, and every year at least one group gets a good set of pictures. In fact, last year they got one on the way up of an airplane that came a bit closer than it should have. The reason why no one has heard of this before is because no one thinks it's interesting enough to tell the press about; except MIT students, who apparently think that everything they do is hot shit.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[MRe_nl]

"great Darsh face hanging over your garden wall." perhaps?

Re:This is hardly anything new

[mystic414]

Give them credit for creative problem-solving.

They get no credit for creative problem-solving when four teenagers in Spain did the same thing six months ago:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard before that this violates FCC regs--but...I'm actually going to ask (anonymously)--why I--or anyone else...should give a damn. What you're claiming-- is that all I need to take out the cellular network (you said it was a ODS attack) in the country is a few pieces of $150 equipment? Couple of portable phones and some balloons... I've got the ultimate panic-inducing terrorist enhancement tool ? I just don't buy it...

If that's the case you might want to get to work on fixing it instead of blaming these guys for risking the problem. I'm just saying...if a multi billion dollar network can be seriously threatened by less than $200 of hardware--it's a design problem, not something that should be fixed through legislation or weak social measures.

More than likely, the network can handle it (I know I've seen people text on planes when nobody's looking, and nobody's shown up), but doesn't...deteriorate gracefully under such stress

Re:This is hardly anything new

[tkw954]

Where do you buy your balloons from?

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Bruce Perens]

Check out Stratofox. That's the serious tracking group.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Bruce Perens]

GPS at full height and wind profile at the various altitudes you'll traverse gives you a good idea where it will come down.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Waterppk]

Yep, I was logging in to say the same thing - http://www.arhab.org/

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Rorschach1]

My last launch covered 100 miles / 160 kilometers, so yeah, you might want to bring your passport with you if you launch from Great Britain!

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Bruce Perens]

If you can afford to, here, otherwise you can get post-dated ones on ebay.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[drolli]

I would not count the cellphone as a $50 device either. If you loose a subsidized phone (and i guess it is subsidized), you have still to pay the fee.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Bruce Perens]

Well, this phone was from Boost Mobile, a pay-as-you-go service. I have Net10, and they have not objected to my taking phones out of service early. Indeed, the way their service works, if you don't like your phone at all, buying a new one at monthly renewal time works out best.

Net10 disables the USB data functionality on all of their phones. So, using the more expensive Boost would be necessary.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Jared555]

Actually, there is some overlap between wifi and ham frequencies which results in people being able to set up very powerful wifi amplifiers on certain channels (although with major encryption restrictions)

Re:This is hardly anything new

[Cantus]

I wish I had mod points for you, my friend. The Spanish kids deverse all the credit in the world. I was disappointed that that story never came up on Slashdot when I read it six months ago.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[xrayspx]

Don't be disappointed, submit the link! That said, I've never contributed a damn thing to this site, so so much for that advice.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I think the arts students would be more likely to carve an image her vulva.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[nametaken]

The last time I saw this done I seem to remember it was done using a small project board with something like a pixace chip controlling the snapshots.

That'd be like a $2 upgrade and minimal complexity if it widens the range of usable cameras to anything with solderable shutter release button contacts under the housing. Oh, and I'd guess it has to be a camera that won't go to sleep on the ride up. :)

Re:This is hardly anything new

[nametaken]

It made it to a LOT of other sites. I remember seeing it myself.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[dgatwood]

There's definitely a full moon joke here somewhere.

Re:This is hardly anything new

[mabhatter654]

I understand what you're saying. If you were trying to fly it like a remote control hot air balloon you could adjust it's direction by carefully picking it's altitude.

If we sold cheap device that could fly across the Atlantic like that the terroristas would have them too! OMG! That's the primary reason for not allowing cheap GPS is that it's TOO good. In exchange for using the more accurate signals they agreed to make the units unusable for aircraft, balloons, SCUD guidance, etc. It also keeps people paying more for the "registered" official aircraft rated ones.

More like http://r337arts.com!

[The_Duck271]

Anyway, pretty neat. I thought at first they were talking about a rocket, which I thought must cost much more than $150 to get 20 miles up. But I guess a balloon gets you much higher for much cheaper. Not as cool as a rocket though. I think really big amateur rocket launches go about 10 miles up? There are some impressive videos on youtube.

NOT from space

[Anonymous Coward]

20 miles up is very high, but it is NOT space. The edge of space is more like 65 miles.

Re:NOT from space

[Gordonjcp]

Students from Cambridge University have been doing this for a couple of years now.

Re:NOT from space

[A nonymous Coward]

100 km (62.x miles) is where NASA considers space to start for purposes of being labeled an astronaut. That's where the Space X prize boundary was, I believe for that reason.

Re:NOT from space

[arth1]

Correct. A balloon can't be in space, simply because there must be atmosphere for the balloon to be lighter than, or it can't rise. Never mind that they tend to expand and explode before they reach that theoretical height...

Normally, what we consider the start of space is around 10 times as far out as the record for helium balloons. Even hydrogen balloons can get nowhere near space. If you could make a balloon filled with hard vacuum, you would be able to almost, but not quite, reach space.

So the correct tag for this article is !space

Re:NOT from space

[icebike]

The boundary of space was 65 miles (100km) but NASA pushed it higher after 150 miles, mostly out of a fit of pique following SpaceShipOne's successful claim on the X-Prize.

In any event, 20 miles is pretty impressive, but its still not Space, although, as Sarah would say, you can see it from there...

Re:NOT from space

[Eric52902]

You either need to divide by zero or dereference a null pointer inside it.

Re:NOT from space

[MooUK]

And if you could, how would it stay inflated?

Re:NOT from space

[Chyeld]

I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out how boats float....

Re:NOT from space

[tuxicle]

Well the students took pictures of space, you don't need to be in space to do that.

Re:NOT from space

[iamacat]

A balloon can't be in space

I beg to differ. What's wrong with a balloon boosted to a proper orbit and filled with low pressure gas staying in space. It's just getting it there that is a bit of a problem.

If you could make a balloon filled with hard vacuum, you would be able to almost, but not quite, reach space.

Actually you would need to reach the space first to keep this one inflated (until the point the rubber needs to be stretched anyway). But it will orbit just as well as a balloon filled with soft vacuum/rarified gas.

Re:NOT from space

[Dan9999]

someone modded this informative. I wish I could mod a mod as funny!

Re:NOT from space

[topnob]

I believe you can, there's even a book about it from a respected scientist. http://www.amazon.com/dp/1894959736?tag=jpaer-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1894959736&adid=0DKZD44S4ZHFG34GQD5N& http://www.jpaerospace.com/

Damage on landing?

[jcr]

Their site mentioned that the antenna of the phone got embedded in the ground, and it's not clear from the pictures if they had a parachute on it at all, or if it was just too small.

-jcr

Re:Damage on landing?

[Tablizer]

What a euphemism: "It didn't crash-land, it just rapidly embedded into the ground." Better copyright that before the airlines use it.

Re:Damage on landing?

[Rorschach1]

It's great that they were able to use a cheap phone for this, but it's worth noting that many (probably most, in my experience) GPS receivers will NOT work properly above 60,000 feet. Some stop reporting their position until they come back down, some just report the wrong altitude, and some lock up completely. As long as you don't get one in that last category it's usually good enough for recovery, but you really need to do some research first if you want accurate tracking through the whole flight.

And ham gear doesn't need to be expensive. You can use a $20 surplus radio from eBay (I used a Radio Shack HTX-202) and a tracker kit (the radio modem part) is under $40.

Re:Damage on landing?

[russotto]

It's great that they were able to use a cheap phone for this, but it's worth noting that many (probably most, in my experience) GPS receivers will NOT work properly above 60,000 feet.

That's because of US regulations, not for any real technical reason. Receivers have been hacked to remove the limitation, something probably well within the capabilities of MIT students.

Re:Damage on landing?

[Bigjeff5]

And far beyond the scope of the project.

The whole point was to do this without any sort of hacking, it's all off the shelf parts that a 3rd grade teacher could put together. It was the whole point of the exercise.

Re:Damage on landing?

[Lost Race]

Given that GP also posted this, my guess would be ... #1.

Oops, trolled by AC.

Re:Damage on landing?

[GameMaster]

Actually, it's even worse that that. US regulations say that the receiver can work over 60,000 feet and can work at over a certain speed limit but that it isn't allowed to do both at the same time. The idea is to stop them from being used as guidance for low cost ballistic missiles. The problem is that many of the GPS manufacturers got lazy and just set their equipment to stop working if either condition occurred. In this case, it' really isn't the fault of the US regulations.

Re:Damage on landing?

[AJWM]

Their site mentioned that the antenna of the phone got embedded in the ground

The "ground" at that point having roughly the consistency of sand. Dropping your phone from a pocket is enough to do that.

Re:Damage on landing?

[mr exploiter]

I'm calling BS on this. If this were true then you could put two gps in a missile, each one with different limitations, and thus avoid the regulation. I don't think the US regulators are that stupid.

Re:Damage on landing?

[russotto]

I'm calling BS on this. If this were true then you could put two gps in a missile, each one with different limitations, and thus avoid the regulation. I don't think the US regulators are that stupid.

Two GPSs don't help you; the GP is right both about the restrictions and how they are usually implemented. Any civilian GPS is supposed to refuse to read if both the altitude exceeds 60,000 feet and the speed exceeds some other figure (I think 999kt, but I'm not sure).

The regulation IS stupid, as evidenced by the fact that it can be (and has been) hacked; any group with the know-how to build a ballistic missile could probably find someone able to hack a GPS as well.

ACME

[Tablizer]

My ACME Slingshot Cam may actually have a chance. I'm inspired again.

... they used a cellphone GPS?

[popo]

"The cell phone was secured to the camera and constantly reported its GPS location via text message."

Sure the GPS part of the phone would work, but is anyone skeptical of the SMS bit? How could this possibly have been within tower range?

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[Tablizer]

Do you mean from space? It didn't have to actually work in space, only close to landing time.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[Bruce Perens]

It was in line-of-sight to the tower. Most of the signal loss is from obstacles on the ground. When you have line-of-sight, you can go very far.

That's why use of cell phones at altitude is illegal. They illuminate thousands of cell cites all of the way to the horizon, and probably lock users out of a frequency on every one of those sites. It's sort of a denial-of-service attack.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[JorDan Clock]

From their website:

The GPS cell phone we used to track the location of our vehicle lost reception soon after launch (at an elevation of ~2500 feet).

So I'm guessing it gave it's location up to 2500 feet, disappeared, then reappeared when it went below about 2500 feet.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[click2005]

It would only need to be when its nearing the ground.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[lastomega7]

It only needs to report its location accurately when it falls to the ground for retrieval purposes. Then perhaps the texts from the out-of-range altitudes would be saved on the phone as unsent messages?

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[Tokerat]

That's why use of cell phones at altitude is illegal.

Which makes this inexpensive project a bad idea for middle-school science teachers to start doing all over the place, or a cheap way to take down a cell network.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[CrazyChinaman]

So sending up a cadre of cheap cell phones set to ring pre-set numbers (or each other?) could lock down an area's cell service? I'm not too familiar with cellular communications protocals...

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[bill_mcgonigle]

and probably lock users out of a frequency on every one of those sites.

This is exactly the same as having one more regular phone within a cell's tower's range, right? I can see why the idea isn't scaleable, but given the number of students launching balloons it hardly seems like an actual problem.

Why don't the towers just pass around lists of subscribers based on pair-wise comparisons? If Tower A, B, and C can see a phone but tower D can't, tower A, B, and C can figure out who's going to service it. Use GPS data from the phone to help. Extending that out from AA to ZZ (e.g. towers CF through DR wind up negotiating), and phones at altitude should be a very manageable problem.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[mcrbids]

Hey Bruce!

I've seen several comments here that you've left about just how bad cell phones are "at altitude". And while I can confirm the FCC regulations, I can't confirm the truth of this allegation - that using a cell phone at altitude (let's say about 3,000 feet above ground level?) causes a "denial of service attack".

Sure, I understand the theory - cell phones connect to the closest tower on a frequency that's not shared by other closest towers, and cell phones at altitude could connect to many towers using the same frequency and thus degrade system performance by "hogging" a channel - but is there any *documentation* that this effect actually happens?

As a software engineer, I can't name the number of times that I've identified a potential weakness in an algorithm, documented it as such in a comment in the code, and then discovered the note a year or two later after it's patently obvious that the flaw never materialized in any meaningful sense. Yes, those things *could* happen and cause things to come crashing down, but in many cases, it just doesn't happen.

Yes, the cell signal *could* connect to multiple towers at altitude. But even high altitudes aren't really that high. Even when crusigin at 30,000 feet, you are just 5 or 6-ish miles away. Since towers are typically about 5 miles apart, and don't share channels, that means that, in most cases, one tower will be significantly closer than the others. And the inverse square law is pretty strict - 2x the distance, 1/4 the signal strength. That means that at any time, there are perhaps two towers that will have more than 4x the signal strength as their nearest applicable neighbors.

Sure, I'll accept that there's some effect - but a DDOS that extends all the way to the horizon? Hardly. I'd really, really like to see any kind of actual study that would document this effect. Are you aware of any?

PS: I miss Technocrat. You had your reasons to let it go that I respect, but I still liked it.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[Bruce Perens]

If the carrier's system is smart they can do some things to reduce the impact, like not giving your phone a frequency to use or putting all of the problem phones on one channel. But there is more than one carrier. I think they also have their antennas configured to not look up, but that doesn't help if their tower is on the horizon - it's looking straight out.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[Bruce Perens]

Even when crusigin at 30,000 feet, you are just 5 or 6-ish miles away.

But the horizon is 212 miles away in every direction, plus up to 20 miles to account for the height of the tower. And you have line-of-sight, in a system with the high fade-margin necessary to work with ground obstacles. For a ham to go as far as that on similar frequencies and power, given line-of-sight, is commonplace.

I haven't seen reports of tests, but I'd imagine such things exist.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[bill_mcgonigle]

But there is more than one carrier.

So, they can all implement redundant, inefficient schemes, or co-operate for a net-better outcome. It seems the Internet shows the benefit of the latter method. I guess it's inevitable that the two will merge eventually.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[Algan]

I believe that depends on the technology. CDMA networks are designed so that phones talk to multiple towers simultaneously. In fact, there is no single frequency a phone will use at any given time, rather each phone will transmit on the entire allocated band. Of course, the devil is in the details, and I'm no CDMA expert so it's entirely possible that I'm wrong.

I think that the ban on the use of cell phones in planes stems from two different issues. One is the fact that planes travel fast and that creates some problems with handovers between cell sites. Another is the good old low frequency GSM interference (the brrrrap noise you hear in poorly shielded speakers when you have a GSM phone nearby).

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[piltdownman84]

2500 feet sounds far too low. In Canada and the US I have found that coverage is good until about 8000' AGL. Sometimes depending on the area you can get coverage up to about 12,000' ALG. You can normally get Data Service as well, although it is somewhat more spotty.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[DuBois]

They illuminate thousands of cell cites all of the way to the horizon...

My understanding is that the carriers have all fixed this former problem and that software prevents any cellphone at any altitude from talking to more than one tower.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[Bruce Perens]

Unfortunately, it's not just a software fix. What they probably fixed is that multiple towers will not respond. But the signal still reaches all of the receivers on all of the towers in range. This will hurt the ability to reuse the frequency on all of those towers.

About the best thing that towers can do with a radio at altitude is to prevent it from transmitting at all.

Re:... they used a cellphone GPS?

[JorDan Clock]

We're talking about a very cheap phone here. Something that is lucky to get signal at sea level, let alone 2500 feet up.

Safety?

[Noodlenose]

While I love the low-cost aspect of this project, I am worried about the safety aspects: No air traffic control registering, and how did they prevent the bloody thing from hitting another human on the way down?

NN

Re:Safety?

[Tablizer]

how did they prevent the bloody thing from hitting another human on the way down?

"Blasted insurance company says my meteor insurance doesn't cover the hole in my face because the object was artificial. Dirty fine-print lawyer rats!"
   

Re:Safety?

[Bruce Perens]

You can inform the FAA to issue a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) and you can get your flight permitted, all of the ham groups know how to do this. You can get a fine for not informing the FAA if your payload is over a certain weight.

The terminal velocity of falling objects varies according to the weight of the object and the air resistance. A foam cooler and some ropes and torn balloon falling from altitude don't go very fast. Note that their descent took 40 minutes, and it was probably faster in thin air than thick.

There was an interesting mythbusters on falling bullets. They couldn't get much force out of them.

Re:Safety?

[Anonymous Coward]

how did they prevent the bloody thing from hitting another human on the way down?

Probability?

Re:Safety?

[Oswald]

You can inform the FAA to issue a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) and you can get your flight permitted, all of the ham groups know how to do this. You can get a fine for not informing the FAA if your payload is over a certain weight.

You can, and you should, provide this information to the FAA. Rest assured, however, that no meaningful action will be taken in response. It's all based on the big sky theory (which, it should be noted, has a pretty good record in this matter).

Re:Safety?

[The_Duck271]

Human heads cover quite a small percentage of the earth's surface; it would be rather remarkable if the balloon hit a person.

Re:Safety?

[FailedTheTuringTest]

It sure would be remarkable! People would be remarking about it on all of the major TV news networks!

Re:Safety?

[pete-wilko]

Not sure who modded you as troll - fair enough question which I was thinking of too - and the responses shed light on the situation. Less so about the falling, more about it operating in travelled airspace (admittedly taking up a v.v.v. small part of said space).

Re:Safety?

[Bruce Perens]

I've heard the airport broadcast, which passenger planes are required to copy, making note of a weather balloon.

Re:Safety?

[Jared555]

And they stated this fact during the show as well. I believe the comment was valid though because the balloon's payload is not going to be traveling on a ballistic trajectory. It will be similar to when they just dropped the bullets from the hight where they reach terminal velocity.

Re:Safety?

[iamacat]

Actually it sounds like security through algorithm, like low probability that someone just happens to guess your 128 bit key. Security through obscurity would be flying your balloon far away from all common air traffic in hope that nobody will think to look for it to collide with.

Re:Safety?

[Dan541]

Sightings of large birds, such as eagles and pelicans are reported to light aircraft.

I expect something like a flock of Geese would be reported to all aircraft.

Re:Safety?

[Bat Country]

Getting hit in the head with a styrofoam cooler weighing less than 2 pounds total at 17mph would hurt, but do no real damage unless you were short a skull.

20 miles up is NOT space

[damburger]

This is a fairly standard high-altitude photography method, that is just being hyped up. You attached a camera to a helium balloon. Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Doesn't have anything to do with space.

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[Sir_Lewk]

From TFA: "Photographs from near-space"

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[Abcd1234]

TFS: Students Take Pictures From Space.
TFA Title: MIT Students Take Pictures from Space on $150 Budget.

You were saying?

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[damburger]

OK. I'm working on a satellite. One that will a) really go into space and b) costs a shitload more than a weather balloon.

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[Bigjeff5]

Journalists exaggerate?

You're surprised?

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[vxvxvxvx]

The education system continues to redefine words in order that their accomplishments appear to be progress. In another 10 years you'll be able to jump high enough to take photos from space.

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[kramulous]

I have to admit I was thinking the same. How does a balloon get you into space exactly? Them MIT people are really scraping the bottom of the barrel to keep enrollments up. This is amateur stuff. Fun, but not ground breaking.

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[kraksmoka]

yeah, but so what? it makes the world a much smaller place (once again) overnight . . . space really is the next place scientifically that we should be looking to drive our economy (and species one day) on to higher frontiers . . .

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[Beezlebub33]

It seems like MIT has been releasing a lot of 'news' that concentrates on making technology available more cheaply. I don't know if it is a change in technology focus, the fact that so many of their students seem to come from foreign countries, or they have a social conscience, but they have recently discussed a cheap solar concentrator, peanut sheller, a low cost water purification, and they host the International Development Design Summit and IDEAS.

No, this is nothing ground-breaking technology wise, but they are cleverly using inexpensive technology to provide capability to a wider range of people. And that's a good thing.

Re:20 miles up is NOT space

[piltdownman84]

From TFA: "Photographs from near-space"

Space is considered 73 miles, 20 miles. Is like less than a third of the way. Not what I would say is even "near"

Great Idea

[WilyCoder]

Great idea! Now I'm thinking about more balloons and a DSLR with a circular polarizing filter...

Re:Great Idea

[schon]

Now I'm thinking about more balloons and a DSLR with a circular polarizing filter...

Already been done.

Twice. :)

Groundbreaking?

[mustafap]

>Yeh stressed the groundbreaking nature of their work

Ah, best not tell him that the BBC science show "Bang Goes the Theory" did exactly that a few weeks back. Photo's on the way up looked great, and it must have been fun tracking and then retrieving it. I think it would make a great sunday activity.

Re:Groundbreaking?

[mustafap]

>"Bang Goes the Theory" is reasonably entertaining/informative for the general public, but they don't do anything new.

Unlike the boys from MIT, they don't claim that it's new.

Re:Groundbreaking?

[Idiomatick]

They have a whole page on the site linking other people that have done this in past. L2read.

Yawn

[shaitand]

This has been done numerous times.

But speaking of low cost space flight. I've seen lots of tricks used to protect the equipment from being burned up in the atmosphere... have there been any attempts to exploit a reaction with the earths atmosphere and harness the resulting energy?

Re:Yawn

[ivan_w]

Well, somehow, it is already being exploited..

It is used to *reduce* the overall kinetic energy of a re-entering bolide so that the acceleration (and hereby force) to which the payload is submitted at impact doesn't damage said payload.

And also.. the overall energy dissipated during atmospheric re-entry cannot exceed the amount of energy used to put the object wherever - and at whatever velocity - it was before re-entry. So if you are worried about energy expenditure.. just don't launch !

--Ivan

Re:Yawn

[Megane]

Atmospheric burn-up is caused as you lose orbital velocity when you contact the atmosphere. As balloons and their payloads were never in orbit in the first place, there is no worry about anything burning up.

Re:99 Luftballoons

[32771]

Not anymore my friend, not anymore. Not since the nineties at least.

Oh and by the way:

"You and I in a little toy shop
Buy a bag of balloons with the money we've got.
Set them free at the break of dawn
'Til one by one, they were gone.
Back at base, bugs in the software
Flash the message, Something's out there.
Floating in the summer sky.
99 red balloons go by."

Bugs in the software, eh? Well, they may still have them. Maybe it is still a relevant song.

I never knew there was an english version:

http://www.eightyeightynine.com/music/nena-99luftballoons.html

It has been toned down quite a bit.

62mi / 100km

[imtheguru]

According to the Federation Internationale D'espace, space begins at 62 miles, about 100 kilometers. Often referred to as the 62 mile club.

Cheers.

Re:62mi / 100km

[Dogtanian]

According to the Federation Internationale D'espace, space begins at 62 miles, about 100 kilometers. Often referred to as the 62 mile club.

Is that supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Mile high club? I suspect that membership of this one is considerably harder to achieve ;-)

$50 GPS cell phone?

[petes_PoV]

Are these guys being a liiiiiiiitle economical with the truth here.

I realise that mobile phones are dropping in price all the time, but to buy a phone from a store that has GPS built in ...... for $50? Did they accidentally drop a "0" off the end of that price?

Re:$50 GPS cell phone?

[QuantumLeaper]

No, I found the same cell phone for $40 at many online places, it took 30 seconds to do a search.

Re:$50 GPS cell phone?

[petes_PoV]

Oh, right. Not new then. When the article said "off the shelf" I just assumed all their stuff was store-bought. I stand corrected.

Re:$50 GPS cell phone?

[Bigjeff5]

All phones manufactured in the US since 2000 have GPS in them, it is required by law for 911 tracking purposes.

It also never turns off, though you can "disable", which basically just tells the cell phone company to stop monitoring the signal it is continuing to send out.

The cheapest phone that will allow you to use GPS tracking services (which tend to require extra software on the phone) like Instamapper is the Motorola iDEN pre-paid phone, which can be had for $40 at any Target or Best Buy.

You were saying?

Re:$50 GPS cell phone?

[Bigjeff5]

Hrmmm... Preview is my friend.

Re:Simpsons did it Simpsons did it

[QuantumLeaper]

They did it for 12.5 times the budget the other students did it for also.

High School Students got better photos for $100

[nunoloureiro]

Some High School Students from Bilbao, Spain, did the same thing earlier this year for less than $100. Looking at the photos, it seems they got better shots.

Story here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html

Photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meteotek08/sets/

Re:High School Students got better photos for $100

[chocobanana]

Yep, here's more coverage from Wired: http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/03/kids-send-a-cam/ You may need to dig a bit in the Flickr slideshow but the amazing photos are sure there.

Re:High School Students got better photos for $100

[sr180]

Yes, and it was covered by slashdot at the time: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/18/1645216

Re:Obligatory

[russotto]

Having FAA and FCC investigators show up at your dormroom? Priceless
Really, one would think MIT students would know better.

If everyone actually followed all the regulations we have nowadays, no one smaller than Boeing would ever get anything done.

Re:I browse Slashdot...

[Neon Aardvark]

I don't. Balloons can't make it into LEO. 20 miles up isn't space. Don't say it's space.

Absolutely Beautiful

[Giga-Byter]

In my opinion, it's an incredible feat!

But most of all I'm amazed of how they've been able to successfully retrieve the device after its landing. It could have landed in a sea, or even in another country. It also could have been disintegrated before it had reached the ground.

P.S. Because of such enthusiasts we can be certainly sure that NASA isn't fooling us: there are no elephants out there and the Earth is round indeed.

Re:Absolutely Beautiful

[slashnik]

But it has GPS, a couple of servo controlled fins and a PIC micro controller and it could fly home to your back yard.

I remember when we were going into outer space...

[ysth]

From the ireport article:

At a time when budget cuts are forcing NASA to get cut back on spending, and at a time when high school science teachers struggling to capture the interests of students, low-budget space launches could be just what we all need.

I think Laurie Anderson said it best:

I remember when we were going into outer space. I remember when the President said we were going to look for things in outer space. And I remember the way the astronauts talked and the way everybody was watching because there was a chance that they would burn up on the launching pad or that the rocket would take off from Cape Canaveral and land in Fort Lauderdale five minutes later by mistake. And now we're not even trying to get _that_ far. Now it's more like the bus. Now it's more like they go up just high enough to get a good view. They aim the camera back down. They don't aim the camera up. And then they take pictures and come right back and develop them. That's what it's like now. Now that's what it's like.

Re:If you have a cell phone attached

[phozz bare]

Because the only thing attaching the cell phone to the camera is duct tape.
Because the battery will run out before a tenth of the pictures are transmitted.
Because the balloon will pop.
Because the little heating bag preventing the electronics from dying of cold will run out of juice within a couple hours.
Because nothing you can hack together at $150 is something that you will be able to "just leave up" in the stratosphere.

Do you need more or can I stop now?

A decade of space terrorism has just begun...

[Rusty pipe]

Common kids, this was not even near space.

!nearspace

Re:I browse Slashdot...

[Dogtanian]

... for this kind of story.

Yeah, I liked it as well. Inspiring stuff, better than the usual "Apple were dicks to some bandwagon-jumping iPhone developers" and similar IT stuff.

Re:If you have a cell phone attached

[Tokerat]

Probably because you'd jam the cell network by hogging a frequency on tons of towers at once, since you have almost unobstructed line-of-site to half the hemisphere, which is illegal, and also why your phone has "Airplane Mode".

Old News

[ianturton]

Cambridge University and some UK high school (US Middle school) kids did this in 2008 - http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2008120401

Step by step with parts guide?

[HermMunster]

Anyone know where a step by step guide for this is and a list of parts. I'd like to do this with some of the kids in the small town I live in, to give them a sense of accomplishment and encourage them to become involved in science.

Pissed Off

[TheUnknownOne]

This article actually pissed me off enough to log in and make a post. This is nothing new. A group of us did this a few years ago and have a set of similar pictures. We actually intend to launch another balloon in a few weeks, with revised radio gear. See.... we don't use cellphones for that, and we use a GPS unit that will actually give us a correct altitude and speed that high up. Ham Radio / APRS FTW....

Re:Pissed Off

[Wuhao]

Since you've done this before, I may as well ask you -- how hard is retrieval? From launch point to drop point, how far off is it, and how do you keep from landing in irretrievable spaces?

Re:Pissed Off

[TheUnknownOne]

The first time we launched our radios failed. It landed about 17 miles from where we predicted (We use software whose name escapes me at the moment which can predict the location based on current wind patterns) and someone else found it and called us. The second time, our radios gave us its coordinates to within a couple of meters. We had been following it for its entire flight (unfortunately, the balloon had been under-filled, so it landed a few hundred miles south of where we planned... We followed it for 13 hours). As far as landing in places where you won't be able to get it... you don't launch anywhere near any? You should plan your launch such that you are nowhere near any large bodies of water, as they are the primary thing that makes it unreachable. You can climb tress and etc. Desolate areas are better, because landing on the highway will cause issues. (We chose to launch in New Hampshire, with our ballon intended to land in Central MA. The first shot was pretty close, the second shot landed in southern CT, hopefully our third shot will land in Central MA, but we haven't gotten that far yet)

Re:Obligatory

[pongo000]

If everyone actually followed all the regulations we have nowadays, no one smaller than Boeing would ever get anything done.

There are good reasons why terrestrial cellular operations aren't permitted at altitude. You obviously haven't done your homework.

Any number of alternatives could have been used: A DF "fox", APRS setup, etc.

Cost of Balloon?

[jshriverWVU]

I love articles like this, and I've dreamed of doing a similiar project. While the costs of the equipment is doable and with a little know how you can get a rig together for less than $200 it's the flight that cost so much. Does the $150 cover the weather balloon and the tank(s) of helium it took to get the payload there? If so I'd love to know where they bought it. Last time I priced a modest balloon it was in the $500-$1k US range (just for the balloon).

Re:Obligatory

[russotto]

There are good reasons why terrestrial cellular operations aren't permitted at altitude. You obviously haven't done your homework.

There's at least plausible reasons for a lot of regulations. However, the reasons for not allowing cellular at altitude are, at the very least, overstated. There's tens of thousands of flights per day in the US; in a rather large number of them is a cell phone that someone has neglected to turn off. Yet the cell network has not crashed. One more from a balloon won't change anything.

Ass

[coryking]

This article was cool and it would be nice of you to actually contribute to slashdot instead of whine, bitch and moan. You know, talk shop. Tell us about your time.

So please, elaborate on your adventures in (near) space photography so that others like myself might be inspired to go try some of this stuff ourselves. $150 ain't much for a project like this!

But pissed off? Why are you even here? I thought this was a nerd site. Seems to be more a "whine about new technology and pine for the good old days" website. *That* should piss you off. Or just make you move elseware.

What other website offers content like this, but has coherent, smart comments like slashdot? Seriously! I'd love to know...

Re:Ass

[TheUnknownOne]

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1367009&cid=29408247 I'm pissed off because this made the front page of slashdot, apparently because 2 MIT students did it. People do this type of thing all the time, even people from other schools (WPI) and don't get recognized.

Re:Ass

[coryking]

fair enough, but realize I've never seen a story like this on slashdot. There had to be a first story, right?

Re:Ass

[TheUnknownOne]

Nope. As per another post in this thread, there was an article on /. a few months ago about a Mexican high school doing this. Here are some of our pics, courtesy of my friend Theo, http://picasaweb.google.com/Theo.McDonald/AIAABalloonLaunch2# however, he seems to be missing some of the pictures from apogee. (The really cool pics :/)

No kidding

[coryking]

I had no idea that stuff like this has become so cheap. Even for $300 or $400, when split between a few friends it is within reason for a badass project!

Re:No kidding

[jshriverWVU]

If you look at their actual web page and not the article it does say they paid $20 for the balloon (300g latex weather balloon) and around $30 for the helium. So yeah it looks like it is within the reach of mortals now :) Probably to late in the year to do it now, but I'm definitely going to do this next spring/summer.

Relief Valve Necessary?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do all these designs have an internal parachute for use after the balloon pops? What comes to mind is to just put a spring-action pressure relieve valve at the fill nozzle of the balloon, set to perhaps 10% under the experimentally determined burst pressure of the balloon. Then, as the balloon ascends and the differential pressure increases, the relief valve will periodically outgas enough helium to prevent the envelope from bursting. This approach allows one to start with a FULL FILLUP at ground level, and likely achieve much greater altitude than the apparently current scenario of having to operate between the static boundaries of "just enough" fill to ascend at start, and "pop pressure" at what is stated to be about 20 miles up. I'm not a physicist insofar as lift calcs, but common sense would seem to dictate that the pressure relief setup could yield MUCH higher apogees?

Re:Relief Valve Necessary?

[Photo_Nut]

This approach allows one to start with a FULL FILLUP at ground level, and likely achieve much greater altitude than the apparently current scenario of having to operate between the static boundaries of "just enough" fill to ascend at start, and "pop pressure" at what is stated to be about 20 miles up. I'm not a physicist insofar as lift calcs, but common sense would seem to dictate that the pressure relief setup could yield MUCH higher apogees?

Maybe it could go higher, but wouldn't this setup also prevent the balloon from popping? So the baloon would still be inflated, and it would reach a certain altitude and at some point it would be buoyant. It could stay at that altitude for a long, long time. At some point, you need to pop the balloon.

Maybe you could get higher if you used 2 balloons and inflated each of them to less PSI so that they would have less force to pop them. I have to wonder though, at some point, the lack of atmosphere kicks in... It would seem to be an interesting launch strategy for a light-weight space ship, though -- use a balloon to lift it to altitude, and then launch the ship.

Re:Relief Valve Necessary?

[WormholeFiend]

I'd launch an Estes rocket with a MiniFig pilot in it.

Re:Relief Valve Necessary?

[Bat Country]

They want it to come back down again somewhere near where they launched it.

I thought space

[camperdave]

Space starts at 100km, not 29km. You'd think the reasonably clever folks at MIT would know that.

Sig reply

[fishexe]

If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?

Because there's still no cure for cancer.

Re:Yeah, no smart kids outside MIT.

[moosesocks]

It's not as sexy to report "University of Kentucky students take pictures from space on $150 budget".

Actually, I'd expect MIT students to do stuff like this. Podunk U students doing it would be more newsworthy.

Yeah, no smart kids outside MIT.

You're a fucking asshole, you know that? Total fucking gaping asshole.

Hm. Can't tell which one is the actual troll.

MIT's a good school, no doubt -- easily one of the best. However, I will agree that the amount of praise it receives in the press (and by the general public) is hyperbolic and tremendously overstated.

The one thing I'll concede is that MIT's marketing department must be excellent.

(Full disclaimer: I graduated from a public university, and have a great deal of respect for MIT. However, I'm %*#ing sick of reading job postings that contain the phrase "We are only recruiting Ivy League (or equivalent) graduates for this position.")

Re:I'm waiting...

[hyades1]

I see that a fundamentalcase managed to get some mod points.

Pity.

Re:99 Luftballoons

[TheThiefMaster]

I quite like Goldfinger's English version, which is mostly in English but replaces the 2nd-last verse with the German one (in German, not translated). Looking at that lyrics list, the old English verse they removed was pretty bad anyway :)

Re:Yeah, no smart kids outside MIT.

[OrangeCatholic]

>Hm. Can't tell which one is the actual troll.

MIT has done some great things. Inventions like X windows and Kerberos are still (sadly) decades ahead of their time. Lisp has its uses - Emacs does a lot. And MIT was the home of Multics, the forefather of "cloud computing."

X and Kerberos are mature projects, done by mature engineers, in an idealized, ivory-tower environment. What MIT undergraduates do, is more along the lines of, "Let's spend $150 like we're the first people in history to get our hands on that much money. Also, I want a soda." It's small, and it's sad, and it's nothing like the big projects the university staff is known for.

Point being, this is very typical of MIT undergraduate work. Napster was not invented here.

Where's the HowTo?

[mulhall]

Mostly joking, but have these kids put their project online? I'd love for my kids to get this kind of project going at their school.

You're confusing GPS and trilateration

[Nicolas MONNET]

In 2000 GPS chips cost much more than they do now, probably several time the cost of a cheap phone.
What you call "GPS" is actually trilateration, which works by measuring the distance between the terminal and 3 base stations whose location is known. Basic geometry. It also does not require any info being sent back by the phone, and there's nothing you can do against it without dropping off the network.
It's a simple consequence of how cell networks work: it has to know in which cell you are so that it can reach you should someone call you.
What phones can do now wrt trilateration that they couldn't in 2000 is get the localisation info back from the network. I have this on my corporate blackberry, it works well and arguably better than GPS in a city, where base towers are aplenty and buildings block satellite signals.
Newer phones (such as iPáone 3G) can combine both techniques.

Re:Yeah, no smart kids outside MIT.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking asshole, you know that? Total fucking gaping asshole.

From Antarctica

[dargaud]

I got my own balloon pics. It wasn't in space but in a pretty interesting place anyway.

Another "Prior Art" story from 2002

[Luminary Crush]

Balloon 1.0