The High Altitude (Weather) Balloon project driven by Arduino is was a great success! It was known as the Aurora-1 DIY Space Mission. This was the result:

High Altitude Balloon mkme.org

I have always dreamed of sending something to space.  Until recently, this was just simply not an option for the average hobbyist.  When I became involved in developing on the Arduino platform I realized that all of the instrumentation, tracking and control were now relatively easy to produce with very little cost.

A friend prompted me to revisit this dream (over a drink of course) and I took it up with a renewed interest.  We basically decided that we would send a balloon into “near space” in time to meet the Stanford high Altitude Balloon Challenge ” in April 2014.

Quickly I began work on the electronics, enclosure, data logging, temperature control and other various systems.  My fellow friends/team members are charged with the rigging, recovery, flight predictions and several other project needs.

All aspects of the build were documented and shared via YouTube.  Open the link below in a new window to follow all the videos from inception to final build/launch.

For the Arduino Data logger I developed the below code.  It is not optimized and is a bit ugly- but collects the data from the temp sensors, real time clock, barometric pressure sensor and battery voltage. very well.

Here is the data logger while still in development:

Here is the complete Arduino Data Logger and Sensors (with Bluetooth communication):

The basics of the HAB  consisted of:

A weather Balloon
HAB Payload enclosure (cooler bag or Styrofoam cooler)
2 GPS trackers for recovery (an Android phone and a Spot Trace unit)
HD Video (Gopro Hero2)
Cannon Camera with CHDK for still images
Arduino
Barometric Pressure Logging
Temperature Logging (inside and outside the payload)
Recovery Parachute
Heating system (hand warmers)
Other sensors/electronics to be determined…

The launch and recovery were shared live here and on twitter

Launch was from Goderich Ontario Canada and was  recovered  to the south of Grand Bend Ontario.

• Category :

  Arduino, Education, Electronics

• Date :

  Jun . 11 . 2014

• Client :

  MKME Lab

• Address :

  mkmelab.com