Fantastic project from Jonathan Buchanan on hackaday.io:
This project was originally conceived as the most economic way to get a homemade probe to space.
The first version of the balloon has already been launched, although I haven’t finished uploading logs yet.
The second version is still a WIP, but I plan to put that up here as well. The parts list is for the second balloon.
The sensors each probe was equipped with include the following:
- GPS – latitude, longitude, speed, climb, altitude, time
- Barometer – pressure, temperature, altitude
- Horizontal Camera – pictures of the horizon (curvature of the Earth?)
- Downward Camera – pictures of the receding ground
Featured Adafruit Product!
Adafruit Ultimate GPS Breakout – 66 channel w/10 Hz updates – Version 3: We carry a few different GPS modules here in the Adafruit shop, but none that satisfied our every desire – that’s why we designed this little GPS breakout board. We believe this is the Ultimate GPS module, so we named it that. It’s got everything you want and more. (read more)
BMP180 Barometric Pressure/Temperature/Altitude Sensor- 5V ready: This precision sensor from Bosch is the best low-cost sensing solution for measuring barometric pressure and temperature. Because pressure changes with altitude you can also use it as an altimeter! The sensor is soldered onto a PCB with a 3.3V regulator, I2C level shifter and pull-up resistors on the I2C pins. (read more)
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