High Altitude Balloon

How do young people develop satellites?

You begin with a tethered and a high altitude balloon program.  BLUECUBE Aerospace launches high altitude balloon (HAB) flight with 2 communication systems, a satellite up link and a transmitted video feed. 

Payload reached > 67.5 K feet and hit the Atlantic 130 miles down range.

Leading up to the WeissSat-1 mission, the first step for students was assembling Raspberry Pi emulators. In the fall , students assemble and test Raspberry Pi based 1U CubeSat emulators from BLUECUBE Aerospace. Students 3D print 1U chassis, and assemble the Raspberry Pi-based BCA emulators. They create Python-based coding allowing remote access to emulator data consisting of multiple sensor data and camera images via a Wi-Fi network to student laptop graphic user interface.

Students then conduct multiple tethered and high altitude balloon missions. In the spring , and after two successful working trips to the University of Florida, the students complete several tethered balloon flights with RPi CubeSat emulators. Numerous tethered balloonsat missions occurred over the next few months as the students gain knowledge in several areas.

The Process

Raspberry Pi Emulators:

• Created chassis and emulators
• Python-based code
• Tethered and High Altitude Balloons
• Using RPi emulators
• Captive Carry Flight
• FFR prior to Flight
• Emulator collected sensor data