High-Altitude Balloon

August 2019 - May 2021

TLDR: Led a team to create a payload to fly to 100,000 ft altitude on a weather balloon while sending live GPS, altitude, and pressure data back to mission control

This project was done as a part of my high school engineering class. I helped with this project in my sophomore year, but in my junior and senior years I took a leading position in its development. Essentially, every year the juniors and seniors design and build an instrumentation package that is then launched on a high-altitude weather balloon to reach an altitude of ~100,000 ft. It is not quite space, but the views are still stunning. The project was called the Eldorado Space Program.

In my sophomore year, I wrote Python programs to visualize different data from the package, such as the altitude. I was also on the launch and recovery teams.

Development:

My junior year, we decided to build a new package, EAGLE XI, from the ground up using a Jetson Nano instead of the previous choice of a Raspberry Pi, as the more powerful Jetson would allow for more sophisticated programs to be completed, such as ones involving AI. Live streaming video from the package is something that teams in previous years had tried and failed to do. Instead of attempting live streaming video, we decided to try recording a video with a webcam mounted on a servo, to be recovered upon landing. Depending on the view, the servo would either point downwards (right after launching or when nearing landing), near the horizon (near maximum altitude, when the Earth’s curvature is visible), or upwards (when the balloon is about to pop).

I took the responsibility of programming all of the package’s instruments, including a GPS receiver, altimeter, barometer, webcam, servo, and a RockBLOCK satellite modem for global communication. I programmed the Jetson such that it would constantly be sending messages with its avionic data through the satellite modem, allowing for ground control to know of its telemetry at all times.

Using this data, I wrote a program that creates a live view of the package’s location on Google Earth by creating KML files with the package’s latitude, longitude, and altitude. This allowed for a neat visualization of the package’s path and aided in recovery by showing its location on a map. I tested the satellite modem and the Google Earth visualization by taking the package out on walks (and then on drives), allowing for the accuracy and reliability to improve as issues showed themselves.

Physically, our package was a thick stryofoam box, maybe twice as big as a to-go box from a restaurant. The Jetson Nano sat comfortably in the middle while the instrumentation sat near a hole in the styrofoam. At the edge of the box was the servo, holding the camera with a part I 3D-printed. I programmed a sleek GUI using OpenCV to overlay the camera footage, including a visulization of the altitude, pressure, time, latitude and longitude, and orientation (Imagine like an airline pilot’s HUD). I programmed the servo to rotate the camera based on altitude: downwards during launch and landing, at the horizon during flight, and upwards near maximum altitude.

Additionally, we had the local hospital donate an old ambulance a few years back which the space program has used as a follow vehicle ever since. The ambulance, affectionately called the Hambulance due to the presence of HAM radios on it, was tracked just like the package was and had its own computer system onboard to receive telemetry data from the package and view on Google Earth. However, the GPS tracking on the Hambulance was non-functional due to neglect; its Raspberry Pi and all instruments were old and sat in the sun in a plastic box for too long. I spent a lot of time debugging and replacing what was needed to get the vehicle back into working order.

Reflection:

Unfortunately, we were never able to get the package off the ground. My junior year had COVID block any launch attempt, but we weren’t really ready at the time anyways. My senior year, when the package was almost ready to launch, my engineering teacher had to leave the school for personal reasons. I tried to keep the team motivated to get our hard work off the ground, but the unfortunate reality is that the team lost motivation after our teacher left.

Even though it never left the ground, I was very proud to have worked on this project. I thought it was amazing that we made this package from the ground up as high schoolers. Working on this project and seeing the progress we made is what sold me on studying to become an engineer.

NOTE: Unfortunately, due to not being able to launch and from not knowing the importance of documentation at the time, there are not many suitable pictures for me to present this project. As such, some pictures are from past year’s packages and others are pictures I took for development reasons. Thanks for your understanding.

A picture taken by the package EAGLE I in 2014. The package reached an altitude of 120,000ft.

A picture from me working on the satellite modem. On the left are received messages from the package and on the right are commands sent to the satellite modem.

Launching the EAGLE X in 2019. I’m in the blue shirt, right underneath the mouse cursor, controlling the valve on the helium tank.

Working on GPS code…