LEAD Balloon Project

HackPittsburgh entered the 2010 Hackerspaces in Space contest (http://www.workshop88.com/space). This page will be used to document our progress in the competition and any other works in near space balloon flights.

Lofted Electronic Aerial Device Balloon Project

On March 13th Lofted Electronic Aerial Device Balloon Project or LEAD Balloon Project was selected as the project name.

Project Categories

During the first planning meeting we agreed on categories of things that would need to be completed for a successful launch and competition.

• Imaging

Launches

• Launch Checklist
• April 17th 2010 - scrubbed, bad weather
• June 13th 2010 - scrubbed, bad weather
• A1 July 3rd 2010 - trial balloon launched! We made it 97k feet.
• A2 Aug 8th 2010 - official contest launch. We did it!
• A3
• B1 - August 27, 2011
• C1 - Oct 28th, 2012 - TARGET DATE

Balloon and related APRS Tracks

A2 track, KMZ: Media:20100808-A2-KB3TAN-11.kmz

B1 new-tracker track, KMZ: Media:20110827-B1-KB3TOA-11.kmz‎

B1 old-tracker track, KMZ: Media:20110827-B1-KB3TAN-11.kmz‎

Videos

• First chute test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNuhAdYfWXw
• No chute test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dgFspK7V_I
• Small chute bridge test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTzzfnfCHvk
• Large chute bridge test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xdrTl-VHqE

Non Competition Ideas

• Follow on Balloon Projects

Links

• LEAD Link Dump