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:

Prediction:

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.

Update 2:

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

Total distance was 2100km, over 47H.

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.