National Eclipse Ballooning Project
This page will be for posts and updates about the project.
7/6/2023 The target is in sight!
After fixing an orientation issue and making a couple attempts at getting the ground station calibrated, we finally got it to track! The clip below shows the ground station slowly panning in the direction of our IRIDIUM payload, which is the device that the ground station is connected to via the IRIDIUM satellite. There is also a ruggedized laptop connected to the ground station, where we can see updates every few seconds on the IRIDUIM’s latitude, longitude, and elevation.
6/16/2023 Introducing the Pterodactyl
The Payload to Enable Recording of Data and Communication Telemetry Y(While) Lofted, aka PTERODACTYL, is one of several pieces of hardware that will be attached to the balloon. Important components include a GPS, microcontroller, barometric pressure sensor, orientation sensor, and a thermistor. Today we tested the PTERODACTYL to see if it would connect to satellites so that we could receive information, and it worked!
6/6/2023 Ground station Construction complete!
We have finished the construction of our ground station! The ground station is capable of tilting and panning in the direction of the balloon so that we have a way to know where the balloon is headed.
4/6/2023 News article
Here is a link to a news article about our project! The pictures in this article were taken while we were constructing the ground station for the balloon.