we are on the move tracking the balloon. Keep an eye on Twitter and après.fi the tracking call sign is kd0pfn.
After the scrub earlier today we had time to fix the aprs unit which was not working properly prior to the failed attempt. We are good for tomorrow in Port Hueneme at 9:00 am. Hopefully we will be able to get it in the air this time.
we were just at the launch site and we’re ready to go with the balloon filled and everything ready. After counting down we released the balloon only to find out that we did not have enough helium! We are going to gt a bigger tank and try for a relaunch tomorrow.
ceral check
Starbucks check
We are now enroute to are launch zone with launch party in toe
After being transferred between multiple FAA folks and someone in “Military” we have finalized the official launch details for tomorrow!
Launch party will meet at my house at 6 AM and drive up the 33 past Ojai for the launch at 8:30 AM.
Join us in person or track the payload in real-time here…
Thanks to Gabe and Color Services for the awesome recovery notice 🙂
I flew in yesterday and Greg picked me up at LAX. We had the chance to test out the APRS tracking and it worked very well. We also were able to replace my defective radio at the ham city so that I now have a functioning gps unit. Last night we built battery package packs for the arduino and APRS units. Today we will be getting the helium tank that we will use to fuel the launch. We will also contact the FAA and give them the notice. Along with that we will finnish the final assembly of the capsule.
The Byonics Micro-Trak arrived in the mail today so I set it up and took it for a test drive 🙂
The Micro-Track reads the location information from a tiny attached GPS and transmits it via ham radio and then magic happens and the data shows up on the Internet.
During the flight, HAPPy will tweet it’s location, speed and altitude every 5 minutes so that you can follow along 🙂
After the payload lands, we will (hopefully) find it using this APRS data.
A big thanks to Lesson Planet for sponsoring this critical component of the project!
We will launch the balloon from Morro Bay early Saturday morning. According to the CUSF Landing Predictor and UWYO’s balloon trajectory site, the payload will land somewhere near Paso Robles.
If you are interested in joining the launch or recovery efforts, let us know so that we can meet up.
We will be posting real-time tracking info closer to the launch date that will show the location of the capsule throughout the flight…
most likely
The launch is getting close! Geoff arrives in Santa Barbara on Thursday and we’ll spend a sleepless 2 days installing the APRS radio/GPS module, Arduino board with sensors, CHDK camera and batteries into the styrofoam capsule for Saturday’s launch!
We are still looking for a couple of sponsors, if you are so inclined, head over to the sponsors page to see if anything catches your fancy 🙂
Here is a photo of the Arduino with SD card (for logging) connected to a Chronodot clock and temperature sensors:
