High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon

(spectrum.ieee.org)

28 points | by jnord 3 days ago

4 comments

  • bambax 21 minutes ago
    This sounds so cool!

    > I’m a little puzzled about the balloons’ telemetry messages received on the WSPR network, as they have been few and far between.

    But wouldn't there be a way to send messages to Starlink satellites instead of WSPR? Is it a problem of power consumption? (It would be great to be able to transmit images, not just GPS pings).

  • pingou 1 hour ago
    Pretty cool, although it's polluting so hopefully it wouldn't become too popular (probably not).

    "And because such diminutive payloads don’t pose a danger to aircraft" even though they are small and wouldn't make a plane crash, I can imagine they would cause some damage if they ever enter a jet engine, although that would be unlucky as they would mostly fly higher than aircraft. I also wouldn't like it to fall on my head, but with the solar panels as depicted and the small weight I suppose it could somewhat glide.

  • ajxs 28 minutes ago
  • mkarliner 30 minutes ago
    QRPLabs sell even lighter trackers https://www.qrp-labs.com/u4b.html

    and AFAIK are the goto supplier for HAB (High Altitude Ballooning) enthusiasts.