Welcome

Welcome to the home page of the 2011/2012 Monatana State University Edge of Space Imagery Electrical Engineering Capstone group. This website is dedicated to the payload electronics design for the project. To check out the balloon design itself check out the ME's team website.

Background

From the Fall of 2010 through the Spring of 2011, a dedicated group from the Mechanical Engineering Capstone class designed, planned and successfully executed a high-altitude balloon payload system that for a total cost of under $400 captured stunning images from around 100,000ft. In doing so, this group validated a proof of concept idea to capture and recover high-altitude images on a very small budget. 

This year's ESI balloon project will include interdisciplinary efforts from the ME and EE departments to make the balloon go higher and faster, add a fail-safe cut down system, and add electronics to the payload to collect data during the flight. This will tell the story behind the picture.  What was the altitude, temperature, pressure, and geographical location when the picture was taken?

Introduction

We plan to design an embedded system that will record the location data of photographs taken, save the data to on-board memory, and sync the location data with the digital camera.

The project must meet the following requirements:

  • Collect positional and environmental data of the balloon when a picture is taken and record it to memory.
  • Design must include a digital interface for an autonomous cut-down for the balloon (FAA regulation).
  • Design must be able to operate under its own power for a minimum of 4 hours to account for entire flight time plus recovery time.
  • Design must operate in upper atmospheric conditions (Altitude up to 120,000 ft, temperatures from -20 to +50 C, and pressures from 1 bar down to 0 bar).
  • Total weight must be less than .5 lbs.
© Montana State University 2012