BYU-Idaho Near-Space Project

Thor-III
by Carson Fenimore, January 18, 2006

Thor-III is afoot! For the new and improved blog click here.

Thor-II
by Carson Fenimore, November 1, 2005

Thor-II has come and gone. For the blog click here.

Thor-II on launch day
10 Dec., 2005.

Summary
by Carson Fenimore, December 14, 2005

Thor-II was a success in many areas. Unfortunatly, the payload has not been recovered since the launch. But since we are not pessimists, we list here the accomplishments first:

Solid redundant tracking - We had a pocket tracker and TNC/HT system, each with their own GPS units, power supplies and antennas
Great visualization software - ThorTrak, first developed by Jacob Christisen, was extended by Carson and used as our primary tracking software
Good payload design - Telemetry data reported very little drop in temperature as the balloon climbed to around 11 miles in the air.
Excellent networking - Jacob took a lot of initiative and met with a variety of outsiders, including local Ham radio operators, flight instructors, and Physics professors.
Great lessons learned - Because this flight was so much more ambitious than the previous one, there were a lot of things going on. The next flight will use the information we gathered from Thor-II to help create a more controlled, well-defined launch program. More on this later

Output from the day of the launch; data was captured live to GoogleEarth

Now for the analysis. We had a hectic launch day, 10 Dec 2005, starting at 9am. We ran out of helium, found we had dead batteries in the camera, and also that the parachute was untested. We pushed ahead, fixing what we could, and soon found ourselves ready to launch. The balloon climbed through the dense air of Rexburg at 600 feet a minute. Once it got through the jet stream, the payload was ascending at about 1000 feet a minute - right on target!

Where did Thor-II go wrong? Data logs show that at 1h59:40 (UTC 19h59:40) the last position report was received from the pocket tracker. At 1h59:45 (5 seconds later), the TNC gave its final valid position report as well as a telemetry report. Over 4.5 minutes passed before the next position report was received, again by the TNC. This report was digipeated twice, once by the SHAFER repeater, and once by the SHEPRD repeater. The raw data from the final few reports can be found here.

Hypothesis basically center around two key problems:

The Antennas - They were flexible and left to dangle outside the payload, just as in Thor-I (oddly enough, the mistake was repeated!)
The Parachute - Not built according to any real standards, the parachute was our best attempt, and very little analysis and testing were put into its design.

On launch day, we tied one end of each antenna to a parachute line, to keep the antennas straight. The idea was to avoid the problems of Thor-I, where the antenna bent together and ceased functioning. The basic idea was good, but it did not take into account the fact that the parachute did not deploy very well. In fact, during a pre-flight test on launch day, the parachute was seen to deploy, then collapse. It is suspected that somehow, the parachute may have deployed partially, or not at all. The payload may have then went into a sort of free fall. The unanswered question seems to be what happened at approximately 2pm that day. Whatever happened jarred the TNC so hard that it caused a reset, which can be detected by looking at the telemtry sequence numbers (they go from 117 to 001).

With very little data to go on, we can only plan to do much better on the next launch. Thor-III will not be much different than Thor-II, but with the known problems fixed. Namely:

Make the antennas built into the payload
Purchase a proven parachute
Make a launch program that includes the following: Test criteria and schedule, minimum specifications for flight systems (communications, payload, parachute), and a one week pre-launch review period (no new designs/additions to the flight for one week to allow for a complete test cycle.)
Give the option for a total flight cancellation even up to the day of a launch, if anything is found to be sub-standard.

Thor-III planning begins immediately, with the first meeting being held on either the 5th or 12 of January, 2006! More updates to come.

Thor-1
by Carson Fenimore, August 15, 2005

Idaho Falls at approx. 45,000 feet. Photo taken from Thor-1 launch vehicle, 10 Aug 2005.

Summary
The 1^st BYU-Idaho Near-Space launch was a success! The launch took place on 10 August 2005 at about 11:30am in Aberdeen, Idaho. Telemetry data was successfully transmitted and received during the first 30 minutes of flight, afterwhich an unknown failure took place. The payload was found by a resident of Idaho Falls four days later, about nine miles south of Pine Creek Pass, near the Wyoming border. All the pictures taken during its flight turned out excellent, revealing the actual path of the balloon (note: The image showing the path has an inaccurate landing marker; it should actually be about 20 miles east-northeast of the indicated location.)

Payload

Transmitter Byonics Pocket Tracker

GPS Garmin 18 LVC

Balloon Kaymont 350g

Gas Helium

Batteries Energizer e2 Lithium, Radio Shack D123 Lithium

Parachute ? (Donated by Michael Zurich of Germany!)

Camera Canon SureShot 80 Tele (35mm 800 ISO film)

Statistics

Max. Altitude About 50,000 feet. (No GPS data available)

Distance Traveled Approx. 91 miles
Note: the payload actually landed near Swan Valley, not Idaho Falls! Thanks again to Dave Irvin for reminding me, as he was the one that retrieved it, not me.

Recovery Time Four Days

Payload
Transmitter	Byonics Pocket Tracker
GPS	Garmin 18 LVC
Balloon	Kaymont 350g
Gas	Helium
Batteries	Energizer e2 Lithium, Radio Shack D123 Lithium
Parachute	? (Donated by Michael Zurich of Germany!)
Camera	Canon SureShot 80 Tele (35mm 800 ISO film)

Statistics
Max. Altitude	About 50,000 feet. (No GPS data available)
Distance Traveled	Approx. 91 miles Note: the payload actually landed near Swan Valley, not Idaho Falls! Thanks again to Dave Irvin for reminding me, as he was the one that retrieved it, not me.
Recovery Time	Four Days

Launch Tidbits
The launch represented over six months of planning by several people. The idea to launch a "weather" balloon started in early 2005 as part of an IEEE project. As time went on, it became aparant that the balloon would reach as high as 20 miles; this was intriguing to me, because photographs of the horizon at that altitude show only the blueish curvature of the earth. This generated enough interest in me to build something, anything, that could go into space and retrieve pictures like that.

After the summer started, people got busy, started getting married, having kids, and who knows what. As such, the number of available students in the summer dwindled. We had a small group of about three IEEE members focused on designing the payload and planning for the launch. On the launch date, only two students were present. Notwithstanding our small numbers, it was thrilling to go out and chase the balloon.

The most amazing thing about this launch was the recovery. 30 minutes into the flight, the transmitter ceased to function. The last known position report was sent by a digipeter onto the Internet, reporting an altitude of roughly 19,000 feet and a north-east heading. After we lost contact, we attempted to use a BalloonTrak predication to find the landing site. After a few hours of driving around, we gave up hopes for the day. (It was a good thing we gave up, because we were way off, as we later found out).

We could only surmise that the failure had been caused because the transmitter was improperly tuned, causing it to shift off frequency when it got cold. Thankfully, contact information was zipped inside the payload. Four days after launch, I received a phone call by someone who had discovered the package in the forest near Swan Valley, Idaho. What a lucky coincidence, because I likely would not have otherwise found it! We are currently investigating the cause of the failure, although it does not appear to be due to mechanical failure or faulty wiring.

NSNSDSDS
NSNSDSDS is the name of the software package I designed for my senior project as a Computer Science major at BYU-Idaho. NSNSDSDS stands for Near-Space (Nearly Sound and Definitely Spiffy) Demodulation Software (the name was picked for its length and attractive appearance). This software is capable of decoding APRS packets (essentially Amateur Packet Radio, or AX.25, UI packets) sent from a weather balloon. It needs only a radio scanner to be plugged into the computer. The advantage of this software is that it does not require a TNC. NSNSDSDS works and was compelted and presented in August 2005.

The laptop I used on the day of the launch had a faulty sound card and it was therefore impossible to use NSNSDSDS for Thor-1. I have since discovered that there are much prettier applications, such as UI-View which are capable of doing demodulation as well as displaying the results in a pretty map. Still, NSNSDSDS was a great way for me to learn about Digital Signal Processing (DSP). Additionally, other software packages, such as Thomas Sailer's SoundModem, are capable of doing software demodulation much better than NSNSDSDS.

Future launches
It is hoped that this will be the beggining of several successful launches. During the launch, we stumbled across a NASA funded organization called the RISE project. RISE could greatly help in supporting future launches.

Photos
The following photos were taken by our payload (35mm Canon SureShot) or by our cameraman, Mike Ross (5 MegaPixel Nikon).

Thor-1 Payload, parachute, and balloon.

[Flight Photos] Pictures taken from the payload.
[Flight Path] A picture showing when some of the photos were taken. Each blue arrow has a number that indicates the sequence in which the picture was taken. The direction of each arrow roughly corresponds to the direction of the camera when the picture was taken. Each picture was taken about two minutes apart. Since the ascent rate was around 1,000 feet/min., each picture represents roughly 2,000 feet of elevation difference with respect to the previous picture.
[Getting Ready] Just before launch, our IEEE coordinator, Kevin Smith, poses with his daughter, alongside Carson Fenimore.
[Payload 1] Inside the bowels of our payload.
[Payload 2] Even further inside the bowels of our payload.
[Filling 1] Getting ready to fill the balloon up. We obtained a regulator from the school, and with some plumbers glue and some pipes from the local hardware store, we jury-rigged a nozzle just big enough to stretch the balloon over.
[Filling 2] Helium begins to enter into the balloon.
[Filling 3] About half full.
[Filling 4] Completely full, Ryan Reed begins tying it off.
[Chase 1] Having launched the balloon, we set off on the chase. This is typical of a sunny day in Idaho (note: the picture does not capture fully the mooing of cows and the occassional pungent smell of a run-over skunk, also typical of Idaho)
[Chase 2] Ain't nothin' here but wide open fields of good'n white wheat.
[Chase 3] The chase continues...

Movies
Mike Ross' awesome 5 megapixel camera gives us the only live footage of the launch.

[Launch Day] At 8:00am, Mike Ross head's down with Carson Fenimore to meet the launch team in Blackfoot, Idaho. Traveling in Carson's white Taurus, affectionaly called Smokey for its latent tobacoo odor, we are packing helium, payload, parachute, and two balloons (one extra in case of mishandling). This is probably one of the more action packed movies on this series. Highlight: Passing a tractor!
[Intro] This is a good introduction to launch team Thor-1, and company. Not depicted here are the dozens of people who gave their lives to make this project possible (Reason: nobody actually gave their life to make the project possible)
[Filling 2] Preping the balloon for filling.
[Filling 3] Getting a little helium into the balloon.
[Filling 4] More helium.
[Filling 5] Topping the balloon off.
[Pre Launch] T minus one minute to launch.
[Launch] Launch time. Due to timing constraints, we could not obtain a relay in order to turn on and off the buzzer circuit. Instead, we used a 555 circuit to toggle it. Unfortunately, it's beggining state is ON, instead of off, as would have been preferable to our eardrums. BE WARNED: The buzzer is annoying!

Credits
Several people were instrumental in the flight's success, either by recommending a certain design for the balloon, or by going with us to launch it, or both. A partial list of those who helped is included below:

Michael Zürich
Ryan Reed
April Christensen
Tony Barrett
Dave Irvin

Special thanks to Ryan Reed, who went hunting through the back-country of Idaho all day with us, and for taking responsibility of the transmitter! Also thanks for Dave Irvin, who found the balloon, thus completing the project!