Category Archives: Flights

PS-13 MEL-NSW PICO balloon

PS-13 was released on Sunday 13 July 2014 at 8:25am AEST

Details:

Solar powered party balloon, 10mW TX
APRS on 145.175Mhz, callsign: VK3YT-8
THOR8 and OLIVIA 8/250 with RSID on 434.500Mhz

Prediction: MEL-SYD

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Update #1 6:16pm: Balloon passing Sydney in the evening

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Update #2: Balloon left Australia at Gold Coast at 1:51am

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Update #3: 8:30pm 21/7/2014 AEST
PS-13 made it to South America

Prediction:

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Actual:

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Total flying time so far: 8 days and 12 hours.
Total distance travelled: 16274km (and still going :))

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Last prediction shows the balloon has left Brazil coast early this morning.
Next destination: Unknown!

PS-10 MEL-SYD SSDV imaging payload

PS-10 PICO balloon release planned for 7am Saturday 21/6/2014.
Expected to travel MEL-SYD

Party balloon, solar powered, 10mW TX
Miniature Digital camera.

APRS on 145.175Mhz, callsign: VK3YT-10

SSDV imaging payload with RTTY300_8_N_1 on 434.500Mhz

SSDV frames can be received by dl-fldigi as RTTY data
http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:ssdv

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Payload at 10.6g excluding solar panels

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Update #1

The balloon went out of range 160km off Byron Bay at 1:26am

Total distance travelled was 1496km in 17.5h – average 85kph.

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PS-9 – MEL-NSW-QLD PICO balloon

PS-9 is planned to be released Monday 9th June 2014 from Melbourne.

Details:

Party foil balloon. Solar powered payload 10mW, 12g weight.

APRS 145.175Mhz, callsign VK3YT-11.

THOR16 and RTTY100_8_1_N_600Hz: 434.500Mhz with RSID, every 6 minutes, call sign is PS on spacenear.us flight PS-9

Prediction:

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Update #1: Released at 8:30am, perfect day for a launch!

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Update #2: 4:05pm 9/6/14

Balloon is still going north, currently at 8385m altitude past Griffith.
We don’t have any manual tracker in the footprint coverage, but APRS should be available until Bourke.

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Update #3: 6:00pm 9/6/14

Balloon has gone out of reception range. Updated predictions show it will be in range around tomorrow morning

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Update #4: 7:09am 10/6/14

It appears that battery was low overnight and the tracker shut itself down.
Sunrise at 6:40am, the battery was charged up and first packet was received at 7:09am

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Revised prediction based on latest position:

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Update #5: 3:40pm 10/6/14

PS-9 exited Australia via Rainbow Beach, heading East.

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Entire path so far:

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Ron VK4KLC and Doug VK4ADC recorded a WAVE file of the audio from the tracker and it was the most recent position.

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PS-8 – MEL-SA-NSW PICO flight

PS-8 is planned to be release Sunday 1st June 2014 from Melbourne, at 2pm.

Details:

Party foil balloon. Solar powered payload 10mW, 11g weight.

APRS 145.175Mhz, callsign VK3YT-11

THOR16 and RTTY100_8_1_N_600Hz: 434.500Mhz with RSID, every 6 minutes, call sign is PS on spacenear.us flight PS-8

Balloon is expected to travel west to SA first before heading north to NSW.

Aim: Comparison of THOR16 and RTTY working with TCXO

Prediction:

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Update #14:36pm

The balloon was brought down by rain shortly after release :(.

Landed in Flemington Racecourse, the payload and balloon were recovered successfully.

PastedGraphic 2Relaunch is planned for coming Friday.

Update #2 9:34pm

The payload was re-launched at 8pm with a new balloon. Looks like it was still wet up there, the balloon got to 2152m before losing altitude and landed in the bay.

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PS-7 – APRS THOR16 RSID SOLAR MEL-SYD

PS-7 is planned to be release early Sunday morning 11 May (Mother’s day!).

Details:

Party foil balloon.
Solar powered payload 10mW, 12g weight.
APRS 145.175Mhz, callsign VK3YT-10

THOR16: 434.650Mhz with RSID, every 6 minutes, call sign is PS on spacenear.us. Flight PS-7

Balloon is expected to travel north to NSW.

Aim: Testing of long range solar powered PICO payload, and manual tracking with FEC (Forward Error Correction) and RSID identification.

Update #1 8:30am AEST 11 May 2014

Balloon in the air

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Update #2 6:40pm AEST 12 May 2014

The balloon made it to Newcastle, before heading East into the Tasman sea.
The two balloons in the picture are for the same balloon, one for APRS tracker and one for THOR16 tracker.

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Total distance travelled 1111km

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Update #3 7:00am AEST 14 May 2014

The balloon got to New Zealand this morning, and appeared to have landed

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First and last packet from NZ

2014-05-14 01:37:52 EST: VK3YT-10>SV48Q6,WIDE2-1,qAR,ZL1GK:`f+7r<0x1d>FO/#1R}26,9,3,6,-45,3325,0202

2014-05-14 04:14:12 EST: VK3YT-10>SX03R4,WIDE2-1,qAR,ZL1GK:`g4vm&[O/”?G}52,6,3,6,3,4090,0201

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Total distance so far is 3083km.

Update #4 8:00am AEST 15 May 2014

Looks like the balloon decided it didn’t want to stay in NZ for too long.
It re-launched itself this morning, before NZ hams (and customs) could get to it

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A big thanks for ZL hams who all geared up to search for the balloon, even with planes!

That was 24H of rest!

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PS-6 THOR16 RSID

PS-6 was a last minute release on Thursday night 8/5 . It had THOR16 and RSID for auto tuning, in addition to APRS.

APRS callsign was VK3YT-11.

The GPS stopped working shortly after launch but APRS was working until the morning.
Last known location was near Moe:

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Battery life of the payload should last at least 180H, so we might hear from PS-6 again!

PS-5 – PICO floater MEL-SYD-QLD with RTTY and APRS

PICOSPACE-5 is planned for release at around 4-5pm 2-3pm Sat 26/4/14 from Melbourne.
It will be a PICO party balloon floating north from Melbourne to Sydney and possibly will reach QLD.

Details:

12g payload
434.650Mhz, USB
10mW, dipole antenna
100baud RTTY, 425Hz shift, ASCII 8,None,1

Altitude: 7000-8000m

RTTY callsign PS

RTTY tracking with dl-fldigi on http://spacenear.us as PS-5.
Assistance with manually tracking on RTTY is greatly appreciated.

Software for tracking is here:
http://ukhas.org.uk/projects:dl-fldigi

Setup instructions:
http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:tracking_guide

You will need a SSB receiver that can receive 434.650Mhz.

There will be a 30 second gap between groups of 3 RTTY transmissions.

The payload will also send APRS packets every ~8 minutes on 145.175Mhz.
APRS callsign is VK3YT-11

Will be in #highaltitude chatroom on irc.freenode.net
http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=highaltitude

The aim of the flight is to try out both APRS and RTTY on a new tracker, and to see how we can complement manual tracking with APRS.

New tracker:
1g lighter than its brother

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Updated Prediction:

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Update 1: 5pm 26/4.

Released at 2pm, The balloon has been going well, APRS works fine, we had some heavy fading on RTTY but it seems to settle down now.

Balloon is heading towards Sydney, it does look like there should be enough coverage for RTTY reception until Sydney.

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Update 2: 9am 27/4
Passing Newcastle, balloon is going slow at 24km/h, ready to turn left. Still being tracked by VK2 team.

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Updated prediction shows it will get to Rockhamton in 40+ hours. The battery might have been flat by then 🙁

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Update 3: 1:50pm 27/4

Looks like we had the last transmission via APRS at 1:01pm AEST.

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Total travelled distance 1072km

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PS-4 – SA – QLD flight

PICOSPACE-4 PICO balloon was released from Robe, South Australia at 8pm AEST (UTC+10) Monday 14/4/2014.

Details:
– Party foil balloon
– 13g payload with APRS tracker and dipole antenna.
– Callsign VK3YT-11
– TX frequency 145.175, 50mW

Expect to travel north through SA, and then QLD.

The payload will track the ISS space station using the Two-Line-Element (TLE) set and attempt to transmit APRS packets on 145.825 when it is within range of ISS.

Tracker:

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Prediction:

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Tracking at

http://spacenear.us/tracker/?filter=VK3YT-11
http://aprs.fi/#!call=a%2FVK3YT-11&timerange=3600&tail=3600

Update 1:

The balloon moved north slowly for 22H between altitudes of 7000m and 8000m before it got out of APRS range at 17:55:22 AEST 15/4/2014.

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Update 2:

The balloon was heard again at 17:24:12 AEST 16/4/2014 near Mackay, QLD, before disappearing into the Coral sea.

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Total distance was 2100km, over 47H.

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The payload transmitted two packets to the ISS space station during the trip, and none was received by the ISS.

Max APRS range was 350km, which was close to the line-of-sight range at 7000m.

PS-3 – Melbourne – Sydney – NZ PICO flight

PS-3 is a long range PICO balloon flight from Melbourne to Sydney, release at 5:30pm AEST 16 March 2014

Payload is an ultra-light APRS beacon transmitting 10mW on 145.175Mhz. Total weight including battery and antenna is 13g.

Callsign is VK3YT-11

Prediction
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APRS tracking at
http://aprs.fi/#!call=a%2FVK3YT-11&timerange=86400&tail=86400

Tracking with prediction at
http://spacenear.us/tracker/?filter=VK3YT-11

Expected to reach Sydney over night, then it will be out to sea.
If the balloon survives the next day it might be within range of New Zealand APRS stations around 12:00 UTC 17/3

TX frequency will switch to NZ APRS frequency 144.575Mhz once 160.0 longitude is crossed.

1:17am AEST 17 March
The little balloon made it to Sydney!

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Last received APRS packet from Australia coast

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2:53:35 AEST 18 March
The little balloon made it to New Zealand!

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13:41:54 AEST 18 March
Last packet from the balloon before it went out of APRS range

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Path of the whole trip:

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Total distance travelled ~3561km

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Goodbye PS-3, it has been an amazing journey!

PS-2 – Interstate PICO flight

PS-2 is a last-minute un-announced PICO flight.

Launched from Melbourne at 6pm Sun 16 Feb 2014, the small party balloon carries an APRS tracker with a total weight of 16g. TX power is 100mW.

No manual tracking is required.

The aim: to visit NSW, and to stay within APRS reception range for as long as possible.

Prediction:
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aprs.fi tracking screen:
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Update1:
Looks like the balloon went out of APRS coverage at 9:52 AEST.
Updated prediction shows it will be heading south at some stage.

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Total tracked flight time is 15h50m, covering a distance of ~796km which was more than expected. It is ~200km short of the Queensland border, which could be for another PICO flight 🙂

Some stats from aprs.fi
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