High altitude balloon payload, from Sable-3 discussion Options

[djellison]

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...20&start=20

We began talkin about a UMSF balloon - and who know what might happen if enough people think about something hard enough, thoroughly enough and long enough.

How's about this as a starting point.
http://vpizza.org/~jmeehan/balloon/ with http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/part101.html as an important regulatory start point (I'm going to look up the UK regs for this as well)

http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~cuspaceflight/nova1launch.html is also very impressive - all done in the UK

This http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/...video_podc.html is particularly impressive - I like the multiple-cameras slant.

Anyway - thought I'd get a thread going - this is an idea I like too much to let it gather dust in a corner - the one thing that I think would be nice to achieve is self-portraiture of some sort - think Beagle 2's WAM etc....perhaps in a corner of the FOV of one of/the imaging system. What sort of limit's should we set ourselves? 1kg 10x10x20cm? (sort of 2U Cubesat-on-a-diet budget)

Doug

[djellison]

Just a bit of fun using Google Sketchup. Never used it until about an hour ago, it's amazing!

The GMC is somethign I already have. It's a £20 digital camera that takes 1280 x 1024 images at pre-determined intervals. It runs from a single AAA. The Convex Mirror would be the sort you can get to stick on your car side mirror to see blind spots. Having the GMC as a stand alone component is a good move for redundency. I want to see if I can make the GMCSA from what was 'cat cam' - some foam, a mirror ,and then put it in the freezer to see how long it can last.

I got some foam insulation yesterday - and it's too thick really - 50mm thick which is a bit crazy. The thermal properties are amazing, just leaning up againt it you feel hot after 5 seconds because it's not letting heat get away, it's bizarre.

Anyway - if anyone wants the GSU file - let me know

I'm still aiming for something like 10 x 10 x 15-20 internal space - and then if the foam is a few cm thick, you can always carve into it a little.

Weather permitting, I'll be going to Cambridge next Sunday to see a launch by James - http://www.pegasushabproject.org.uk/ -

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[ElkGroveDan]

Just a bit of fun using Google Sketchup. Never used it until about an hour ago, it's amazing!

Never heard of it before. Thanks for the idea. Any idea what all "pro" does.