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Send Your Own Radiosonde 90,000 Feet Into the Sky (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the gonna-take-you-higher dept.

Radiosonde, weather balloon, near-space exploration package... call it what you will, but today's interviewee, Jamel Tayeb, is hanging instrument packages and cameras below balloons and sending them up to 97,000 feet (his highest so far), then recovering them 50 or 60 miles away from their liftoff points with help from a locator beacon -- and not just any locator beacon, mind you, but a special one from a company called High Altitude Science with "unlocked" firmware that allows it to work with GPS satellites from altitudes greater than 60,000 feet, which typical, off-the-shelf GPS units can't do.

Here's a balloon launch video from Instructure, a company that helps create open source education systems. The point of their balloon work (and Jamel's) is not that they get to boast about what they're doing, but so you and people like you say, "I can make a functioning high altitude weather balloon system with instrumentation and a decent camera for only $1000?" This is a lot of money for an individual, but for a high school science program it's not an impossible amount. And who knows? You might break the current high-altitude balloon record of 173,900 feet. Another, perhaps more attainable record is PARIS (Paper Aircraft Released Into Space) which is currently 96,563 feet. Beyond that? Perhaps you'll want to take a crack at beating Felix Baumgartner's high altitude skydiving and free fall records. And once you are comfortable working with near space launches, perhaps you'll move on to outer space work, where you'll join Elon Musk and other space transportation entrepreneurs. (Alternate Video Link)

26 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. LOC by MooseTick · · Score: 2

    How high is that in libraries of congress?

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    1. Re:LOC by davester666 · · Score: 1

      One, if you unroll it.

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  2. Re:I will Elon Musk by Roblimo · · Score: 1

    Thanks. Left out the word "join." Not at my best today.

  3. Ion Thruster by emil · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Can a balloon get an object high enough that an electrostatic ion thruster can take it out of orbit?

    1. Re:Ion Thruster by Jarik+C-Bol · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I doubt it. A balloon filled with a lifting gas will eventually reach an altitude where the atmosphere density outside the balloon is equal to the density of the lifting gas inside, and halt is rise. Think of a balloon full of air underwater, rises to the surface, then stops. In our case, the balloon is full of helium, and rises through a sea of mixed air until it reaches a point where helium would normally be floating on top of the atmosphere if it where not for solar wind stripping it off. (thats a little simplistic in describing where helium goes, but close enough for this situation) IIRC, Most balloons burst before this point, because the gas inside expands as the balloon rises and the pressure outside the balloon drops, and the balloon expands in volume until the material finally fails. Because there is little to no momentum across the globe, the balloon is never technically in orbit. and drops back down to earth. The only reason it does not land at point of launch is air currants, and the fact the earth rotates underneath it a little. The highest altitude balloon, as described in the summary, reached 173,900 feet (about 53 Kilometers) which is a little over 1/8th the distance to the ISS, which is in a rather low orbit because it had to be serviced by the space shuttle. Now, if you could somehow invent a balloon with infinite structural integrity, which would not burst, I *think* you could get a balloon out as far as 100 Kilometers, but at this stage, i'm completely guessing based on quick perusals of some atmosphere data online. At any rate, even at those altitudes, you would still be far to low to fall into an orbit without significant lateral acceleration, which means you are coming back down, that day. Seeing as electrostatic drives take weeks to produce any meaningful degree of acceleration, I don't see how you could reach escape velocity using a balloon and electrostatic drive.

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    2. Re:Ion Thruster by slimjim8094 · · Score: 2

      Getting into orbit isn't about height, it's about speed. The vast majority of the work an orbital rocket does is to get going fast enough - getting the height is pretty easy by comparison.

      https://what-if.xkcd.com/58/

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    3. Re:Ion Thruster by Phil+Karn · · Score: 1

      Your explanation is pretty much correct. But getting higher with a balloon is literally exponentially more difficult because that's exactly how the density of the atmosphere decreases with height. Your balloon has to expand exponentially as it climbs, and exponentials are not functions to be trifled with. The vertical distance over which the atmospheric density decreases to 1/e of its starting value is the "scale height", and for the earth it is an average of 7.6 km (it varies with temperature). But you can see that just getting to 30 km (100,000') is already about 4 scale heights, with your balloon expanding by a factor of e^4. Even that much is harder than it looks because the balloon expands as rises, and the gas inside cools adiabatically, causing its density to increase. Even in thermal equilibrium with the air outside, that air is awfully cold, which doesn't help decrease the lifting gas density. I think 100 km is completely out of the question. That's the Karman line, and it was chosen as roughly the altitude where an airplane could not generate enough lift to hold itself up even if it was going at orbital velocity. That's not a lot of air.

    4. Re:Ion Thruster by samwichse · · Score: 1

      JP Aerospace thought enough of the idea to study it and run computer simulations:
      http://www.today.com/id/502538...

      About 2/3 down the page under the heading "Getting to Orbit"

      ""What if you flatten it out and give it a little bit of aerodynamic shape, and point it up a little bit so you have some of that thrust turned into lift?" Powell asked. "As you climb up, your drag is dropping, and now you're accelerating. The question comes, can you get aerodynamically clean enough, while still supporting the lift enough to slowly get faster and faster ... to get all the way to orbit? Is there a drag-power combination to do that? We think there is. It looks like there's a wide margin.""

      "To achieve orbital flight, the craft would require a spaceworthy propulsion system — something more substantial than helium and propellers. Powell would turn to the type of continuous-thrust ion propulsion system used on NASA's Deep Space 1 and the European Space Agency's SMART 1 moon probe. Based on computer simulations with different configurations, he contends that such engines could drive the mega-balloon to orbit in three to nine days."

    5. Re:Ion Thruster by Jarik+C-Bol · · Score: 1

      I'd sure like to know what kind of progress, successful or otherwise they have made on the concept in the 10 years since then. Its an interesting idea to be sure.

      --
      I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
  4. How high school budgets have changed... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    This is a lot of money for an individual, but for a high school science program it's not an impossible amount.

    When I took engineering class in the early 1980's, our class had enough money to build hot air balloons from tissue paper that flew two blocks away into the surrounding neighborhoods. My balloon was called a "kludge" for flying higher and further than the others after my mother's cat got to it and I patched 300+ pinpoint holes. Kids today have it too easy.

    1. Re: How high school budgets have changed... by Roblimo · · Score: 1

      These people sell jackboots: http://www.epicmilitaria.com/p...

  5. Re: That's a lot of who knowses by Roblimo · · Score: 1

    You mean like in A.E. van Vogt's book, The Voyage of the Space Beagle -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... -- ? It was old (published in 1950; I wasn't born until 1952) when I found it in the school library. My first piece of science fiction. I was in 3rd grade.

  6. Lots of links by shaftbass · · Score: 1

    Any chance of an "open all links in this story in new tabs" option on Slashdot some day?

  7. 10,000 MPH to get into orbit by raymorris · · Score: 2, Informative

    Before getting out orbit, you'd need to get into orbit, which means moving sideways fast enough to compensate for the fact that you're falling. That's around 10,000 MPH, depending on altitude. Balloons don't go 10,000 MPH.

    Depending on your definition of orbit, you also need to be high enough that the earth's atmosphere causes negligible drag, so you don't have to keep your engine running to maintain 10,000 MPH. Balloons don't go that high.

    So orbit is out of question for two reasons. Can a balloon get you high enough that earth's gravity is minimal and your ion thruster can therefore be used to fly away? That would require being about as high up as the moon (very roughly) so no.

    1. Re:10,000 MPH to get into orbit by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      bullshit, object with insufficient orbital velocity will fall. For circular orbit that is 7.7 km/sec, about 17,200 MPH. Elliptical orbits can be more interesting, with closest approach of about 93 miles (unpowered, less than 80 miles possible with powered), but those go even faster at perigee

    2. Re:10,000 MPH to get into orbit by Phil+Karn · · Score: 1

      Not quite. Assuming "100k" means "100 km", conventionally chosen as the edge of space, getting there going straight up from 30 km (an easy weather balloon altitude) requires an upward force greater than the weight of the payload. Anything less and you'll just fall back to earth. If you do this with a rocket (what else would you use?) you will find that doing it slowly is *very* expensive in propellant. In rocketry this is called "gravity loss", and it's one of the reasons rockets don't just go straight up to space even when the intent is to escape the earth. They fly an arched path known as a 'gravity turn': just enough altitude is gained to reduce air drag to an acceptable level while you try to build up horizontal velocity as fast as you can. The less time you spend with your rocket anything but horizontal, the lower your gravity losses will be and the more hard-earned rocket impulse you can devote to getting orbital velocity and *staying* in space.

  8. Re:That's a lot of who knowses by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 1

    joining Elon in outer space is kind of farfetched.

    But suppose you launch an Estes Rocket from your balloon?

  9. Launch is easy... recovery is the hard part by jvschwarz · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Having been involved with two high-altitude (90,000 ft+) balloon launches, getting off the ground is the easy part. Getting the payload back is more difficult. One landed in Lake Michigan and was recovered, the other landed in a marsh and after 6 hours of searching, we still haven't recovered it. (Very difficult terrain to get through).

    Getting into near space can be done for less than $1,000 pretty easily. It's a great educational experience, and loads of fun. Hopefully our next launch will land in a open grassy field.

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  10. There is also SatNOGS... by kefalonia · · Score: 1

    ...for the rest of us who can only afford a 200$ project to hear the beeping sounds from all that craft above 30.000 feet!

    http://satnogs.org/

  11. Re:How do they get around the altitude limit? by MDMurphy · · Score: 1

    Actually the requirement was if it went that hight *and* was going fast.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

  12. A thousand dollars? What the hell. by caffeinated_bunsen · · Score: 1

    If you blow a grand on flying just a camera and tracker, you're doing something amazingly wrong. I worked on a university project that didn't cost that much, and we flew two expensive radios, a SPOT tracker, APRS tracker, Arduino Due flight computer, HD video camera, two GPS receivers, an active thermal control system, and a Kerbal, and we went into it not really knowing what the hell we were doing.

    With one flight's worth of experience under my belt, I could put together a decent tracked payload with sensors and a camera for under $200, using off-the-shelf components. Less if I want to spend time making a circuit board. I'm not sure what helium costs these days, but that and a small envelope sure as hell aren't going to add $800 to the bill.

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  13. Imperative headlines by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

    Send Your Own Radiosonde 90,000 Feet Into the Sky

    You heard the headline. Get cracking!

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  14. Re:How do they get around the altitude limit? by Phil+Karn · · Score: 2

    The problem is ITAR - International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The idea was to keep cheap civilian receivers from being used in ICBMs. For that reason, there's an altitude and velocity limit, but the language was ambiguous. Some manufacturers interpreted it as an altitude AND a velocity, others interpreted it as an OR. The latter create the problem.

  15. Why not spend $$$ on real science w/ NASA? by Muad'Dave · · Score: 1

    If you want to spend money on student research, why not invest in an actual NASA-sponsored project? Check out spaceweather.com (toward the bottom):

    HEY, THANKS! The students wish to thank Sander Geophysics Ltd (SGL) for sponsoring this flight. Note their logo in the upper right corner of the payload. SGL's generous contribution of $500 paid for the helium and other supplies necessary to get this research off the ground. Readers, if you would like to sponsor an upcoming flight and see your logo at the edge of space, please contact Dr. Tony Phillips to make arrangements.

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  16. Most interesting fight - M0xer-4 by StatureOfLiberty · · Score: 2

    Leo Bodnar launched a small balloon with a 11 gram payload. The payload is solar powered and has telemetry. Balloon hobbyists have been watching the flight since July 12th 2014. It is still flying. It has circled the earth (not at equator) about 5 times now I believe.

    B-64/M0XER-4 Flight Web Page
    APRS Position

    Simply amazing. The longest flight I can recall prior to this was one that was launched in California and made it to somewhere near the Mediterranean sea a few days later.

  17. Used to do that twice a day... by jfanning · · Score: 1

    Bah humbug. I used to send balloons (and radiosondes) to 30km+ high twice a day for work. A normal commercial weather balloon will regularly reach up to 35km high (~10hPa).