Project Apex: Success!

GeForce · 20 Jul 2010 at 22:08

Project Apex

Some of you may remember a post I made on the OcUK forums last year after launching a high altitude weather balloon and losing it. Here it is, in fact:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18002524

Last saturday we launched a brand new payload which reached an altitude of 31km (102,000ft) before returning safely back to earth where it was successfully recovered.

We got a lot of very interesting atmospheric information including temperature, pressure, ionising radiation levels etc.

We had two cameras, one pointing at the horizon and one pointing downwards. Unfortunately the horizontal one failed but the downwards one captured some fantastic images.

Some pictures of the launch are below. Please feel free to look at the following links:

Project Homepage and Payload Hardware Details
http://www.hexoc.com/pages/apex/apex-ii.php

Project Image Gallery
http://balloon.hexoc.com/gallery/apex-ii

Sensor Data
http://www.hexoc.com/pages/apex/apex-ii/data.php

The flight path is available as a KML file here or directly plotted by Google Maps (with images) here.

I thought I would post this as a thank you to all the helpful people on here who helped to try and find the previous payload. It was never recovered. We intend to launch this payload again in the near future with a working camera and capture images of the horizon. I will update this post when we do.

Cheers all!
Jon

Stretch · 20 Jul 2010 at 22:15

Good school.

Talbs13 · 20 Jul 2010 at 22:21

Did you have to inform Aviation People? Looks cool.

Raumarik · 20 Jul 2010 at 22:24

Very cool, but can't help but think what a mess of someones head a battery dropping from a container held together with duck tape from 100,000ft would make.

Now there's an experiment!

GeForce · 21 Jul 2010 at 06:59

Yep you need CAA permission. And hopefully all the batteries stay inside the payload

Cosimo · 21 Jul 2010 at 09:40

I remember your last project and the search for the payload. Congratulations on a successful project.

That is quite an achievement, do you have any plans for the future?

GeForce · 21 Jul 2010 at 21:44

Thanks simulatorman. We plan to relaunch this payload with a working horizontal camera.

I'm part of Cambridge University Spaceflight (www.cuspaceflight.co.uk) and we have a lot of things planned with regards to new radio transmission modes and bauds, night launches etc.

Freefaller · 21 Jul 2010 at 22:23

That's pretty cool. :cool:

J86 · 21 Jul 2010 at 22:32

Genuinely interesting stuff

Just out of interest, how do you find where the "payload" lands? I assume is has onboard GPS ?

PaulyD · 21 Jul 2010 at 22:37

I remember your last thread, shame you never recovered it but glad this one came back safely

Some fantastic images as well, top stuff

GeForce · 22 Jul 2010 at 19:07

Fisha: the payload has onboard a narrowband 10mW FM radio module and transmits GPS position, sensor data, and a few other things.

Lots of people track the thing when it's in the air and the data is all collated by a central server.

We also have landing prediction software so we know before launch its landing area to within a 10km circle (ish).