Category Archives: Project Horus

HORUS 40 Balloon Flight: Sunday 4th Dec – CANCELLED

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horus-logo-blackThe flight planned for today had to be cancelled at the last minute due to the weather conditions at the launch site. Heavy rain and high winds just as we were to start filling the balloon forced us to call a halt to the proceedings.

The planned flight will now be rescheduled for the first few weeks back at school in the new year (first week of February is being considered)..

It is a very busy weekend for the Project Horus team within the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group. Yesterday (Saturday) we flew a payload for Tea Tree Gully Council Library. Today (Sunday) we are flying a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics) payload through LaunchBox for a local Adelaide high school.

The predicted flight track for Horus 40 is below.

flight-track-satnight

The parameters being considered for this flight will make it a fast one, as we are aiming to prevent it landing in the inaccessible territory at the western end of Ngarkat Conservation Park, plus we have some less than favorable surface launch conditions to deal with in the morning according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

Horus 40 Flight Details

Liftoff is planned for 10AM ACDT from Mt Barker High School. The payloads will be:

  • Standard RTTY Telemetry: 434.650 MHz, 100 baud ASCII-7N1
  • Wenet Imagery Payload: 441.200 MHz
  • LaunchBox payload
  • Flight Path Management and Control Payload

Tracking will be available via habhub.org habhublogo

SSDV imagery will be available via ssdv.habhub.org/VK5QI

How can you get involved?

Amateurs across SE Australia can contribute to the flight through RTTY telemetry data collection and forwarding to the Internet. Multiple members of AREG are also involved collecting the SSDV imagery data from the 115kbit/s high speed downlink. Follow the links from HabHub or on the AREG website for more details.

Anstey Echidna’s Balloon Flight – TODAY (Horus 39)

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Launch Preparations to fly Anstey the Echidna  into space are continuing. Her spacecraft is ready and flight plans are being reviewed ready for liftoff.

The AREG group who are flying this payload for the Tea Tree Gully Library have been working feverishly in the background building the payloads to carry Anstey on her epic journey. Mark VK5QI has worked some long hours to get everything ready, as has many members of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group looking to receive as much of the SSDV imagery as possible.

Launch is planned for 11:00am Saturday (barring unforsean circumstances). The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will have both it’s launch and chase teams on site from 10:00am to make the final preparations.

prediction-friday

The flight track prediction is also now firming up. It looks like it will be a long drive, with landing predicted to be north of Parrakie on the Adelaide to Pinnaroo road. Stations as far away as Melbourne should be able to hear the telemetry beacon as the balloon reaches apogee.

You can track the balloon payloads via one of the channels below:

  • Standard RTTY Telemetry: 434.650 MHz, 100 baud ASCII-7N1
  • Wenet Imagery payload: 441.200 MHz

This is the live track imagery.

 

How can you get involved?

The Horus telemetry system is based on a “distributed listener” principle with multiple receivers listening for the same frames, increasing the chance of picking them up correctly. Amateur Radio operators across SE Australiahabhublogo are encouraged to set up their 70cm receivers and tune to the 100 baud RTTY telemetry frequency of 434.650MHz.

The more people we have collecting telemetry data and forwarding it to the internet, the greater the chance of us recovering the payloads!

Instructions of what software to download and use to decode the telemetry and forward it to the Internet can be obtained from the habhub,org website.

Live Online Tracking Links

Tracking System Overview2

Also DONT FORGET, there is another balloon flying on Sunday for Launchbox – details to follow!

Balloons Balloons Balloons – Two Launches next weekend!

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horus-logo-blackProject Horus is having a very busy month! Next weekend, Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th of December we are flying a balloon on each day for two separate groups.

Saturday 3rd December – Tea Tree Gully Council – Horus 39

AREG was approached recently by the Tea Tree Gully Council Library to undertake a rather unique balloon flight. Their mascot, “Anstey the Echidna” wanted to go into space, having already been around the world to France, Italy, Ireland, Japan and New Zealand. Of course the Project Horus crew was happy to oblige!

Tea Tree Gully Library - Anstey in Space

Tea Tree Gully Library – Anstey in Space

We are hoping to not only record the film of Anstey’s journey on a GoPro camera, but the images from the flight are also going to hopefully be beamed down to earth live over the new ‘Wenet’ SSDV system that the project team is developing. Amateur Radio operators will be able to help out with the flight through telemetry collection from across SE Australia.

Horus 39 Flight Details

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Anstey checking out the previous flight, learning how it is done!

Liftoff is planned for 11:00am ACDT – 3rd December from a location near Mylor in the Adelaide Hills. The payloads will be:

  • Standard RTTY Telemetry: 434.650 MHz, 100 baud ASCII-7N1
  • “Anstey” the Space Echidna. + GoPro HD Hero 3
  • Wenet Imagery payload: 441.200 MHz
  • Emergency Jettison Module (in case Anstey’s spacecraft fails)

Anstey’s flight path is predicted to take her at least 30km up into the stratosphere, and roughly 150km down range into the Murray Mallee. AREG and North East Radio Club members will be tracking the flight from a number of locations, and will have chase teams following Anstey on her journey.

horus39-earlyflightprediction

Sunday 4th December – LaunchBox – STEM in Schools Program – Horus 40

The second flight of the weekend will take place on Sunday 4th December. This is a flight for LaunchBox for one of the Schools here in Adelaide. Once again student science experiments will be flown, hopefully inspiring more young people to take up a career in science.

Horus 40 Flight Details

Liftoff is planned for 10AM ACDT from Mt Barker High School. The payloads will be:

  • Standard RTTY Telemetry: 434.650 MHz, 100 baud ASCII-7N1
  • Wenet Imagery Payload: 441.200 MHz
  • LaunchBox payload
  • Flight Path Management and Control Payload

How can you get involved?

The Horus telemetry system is based on a “distributed listener” principle with multiple receivers listening for the same frames, increasing the chance of picking them up correctly. Amateur Radio operators across SE Australiahabhublogo are encouraged to set up their 70cm receivers and tune to the 100 baud RTTY telemetry frequency of 434.650MHz.

The more people we have collecting telemetry data and forwarding it to the internet, the greater the chance of us recovering the payloads!

Instructions of what software to download and use to decode the telemetry and forward it to the Internet can be obtained from the habhub,org website.

Live Online Tracking Links

Tracking System Overview2

Next Meeting: Friday Nov 25th: Live Balloon Imaging System

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Note: Changed meeting week this month – 4th Friday (not the normal 3rd)

SSDV Experimental Payload – ‘Wenet’

Mark VK5QI and David VK5DGR have been working on a slow scan digital image payload for the balloon system which transmits at 115kbit/s on a new downlink channel. This system makes uses of the UKHAS SSDV server to stitch together images from packets uploaded by multiple receivers. You can read more about the system on Mark VK5QI’s blog.

Unlike analog SSTV, SSDV sends down compressed JPEG images via some form of data link. Written by Philip Heron, the SSDV software converts a JPEG image into a set of packets which can be transmitted via a radio link and then re-assembled on the ground. Unlike regular JPEG images, if a packet is lost, SSDV will still produce a full image, albeit with some portions missing.

Wenet RX software running within a Ubuntu Virtual Machine

At the meeting Mark and David will give you an insight into how it works. This system will be demonstrated in the field as well during coming Horus flights.

Meeting Time

The clubrooms will be opened from 7.45pm with the presentation starting at 8.00pm. Visitors are most welcome! You will find us here:

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Horus 38: Flight Report – 13th November 2016

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Horus 38 was to be the first flight in a long time featuring horus-logo-blackpayloads only for AREG and the Project Horus group. It also marked the welcome return of Terry VK5VZI to the project (who had been travelling for work for some time), who brought many new faces to the event. It was fantastic to see new people taking an interest in Project Horus.

However, as always it seems when we try these flights for ourselves, Murphy seems to come out to play, ensuring things dont quite go to plan…..

The Flight Outline

The payloads for this flight were planned to be the standard 100 baud RTTY beacon, the SSDV live imaging payload (with improved modem software), several GoPro cameras (we had one pointing up and one pointing out – the plan being to see the balloon grow in size through the flight), and we had our commandable standard flight termination payload. The main objectives were to get some more video footage for AREG’s own use, and to conduct a further test of the SSDV system under flight conditions.

Flight Preparation

Preparations for lift off went smoothly and the balloon train was quickly assembled. Since all of the payloads had been pre-assembled, the weights of everything were already known which sped up the process of getting the flight off the ground.

SSDV Ground Station

In addition to the team at Mt Barker, we also had Peter VK5KX and Andrew VK5AKH setup at Palmer on the back of the Mt Lofty ranges ready to receive the SSDV telemetry and relay it to the Internet. We had high hopes that would improve the number of pictures we could capture during the flight.

Launch

This launch, like Horus 37, was conducted under challenging conditions with squalls and wind gusts sweeping through the area prior to lift off. The surface winds were proving unpredictable, with periods of calm followed by 40-50km/h winds. We had successfully launched in conditions like this previously, but like all things, our luck had to run out eventually, and so it did this day!

At release, the wind picked up again at the wrong moment. While we avoided the payloads hitting the ground when letting it go, it then encountered a more serious obstacle. A final gust of wind pushed the balloon train into the path of a tree on the edge of the oval. For a second we thought it might just clear it, but no – alas it collected it full on. Then, after an agonizing 20-30 seconds, it freed itself (although not before mashing the polystyrene payload boxes fairly well), only to get snagged a second time in the next street. There it met it’s destruction when three of the four payloads were ripped from the balloon. The RTTY beacon, the SSDV experiment and the camera payload were all left mangled and grounded, while only the balloon cutdown payload continued on it’s flight.

David VK5DGR has “kindly” conducted a post mortem of the event on his blog which you can see here:

After going and collecting our battered payloads, we regrouped. We still had a balloon in the air to chase. So, with that, we reconfigured our chase cars and switched primary tracking to the backup telemetry feed. Unfortunately this precluded most amateurs from joining in (as the secondary is also the flight termination telecommand system and so is deliberately kept somewhat obscure for obvious reasons). We apologies for not being able to involve everyone this time. Dont worry, however, because there are two more flights planned for the very near future!

The Flight

After the nasty takeoff, the flight itself went well. Murphy however wasn’t done with us yet. We had decided to bring the remaining payload down early, in order to make recovery as easy as possible. The button was pushed, the commands were acknowledged, but the payload didn’t detach! Hearts sank again as we realized we would have to track it all the way and hope that it didn’t land somewhere inaccessible. The pre-flight predictions were all based on the full payload weight being there. Once three quarters of it was left behind, the ascent rate became much higher, changing the landing zone (based on the original predicted burst height) considerably.

Luck wasn’t completely with Murphy however, and we finally had some when the balloon burst early of it’s own accord. At around 27km altitude, descent began, giving the ground crews a repreive and a relatively easy to recover landing location.

horus38-flightprofile

Flight Track Profile for Horus 38

The Recovery

At the end of the day, the teams converged on an empty paddock outside of Sanderston on the Murray Plains and collected the remains of the payload from the flight. Not an ideal day, but one which ended well with a successful recovery. The teams were close enough to actually see the balloon land, something we have missed for a few flights, so at least our tracking and tactical work is at the top of our game.

Flight Statistics

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Conclusion

There are lots of lessons to learn from this flight. The main one will be to reconsider the layout of the payloads on the balloon train. With three 70cm transmitters and one 70cm receiver we had taken to spacing out the payloads considerably. This long train is what compromised the take off, and ultimately lead to the partial failure of the flight. The team is also reviewing our flight manual to consider the surface winds in more detail. Ultimately, even after 38 flights, there is still more to learn. Thats the fascinating aspect of this corner of the hobby!

73’s till next time de Project Horus

Balloon Launch November 13th: Horus 38 – 10:00am ACDT

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The Amateur Radio ExperimentersIMG_1767-1024 Group is planning another High Altitude Balloon Launch. Designated Horus 38, it will be an internal project team flight carrying payloads specifically for AREG members. Multiple payloads will be included.

UPDATE: Due to the high wind conditions at the launch site, most of the payloads did not make it off the ground (including the video and SSDV payloads). Currently only the LoRa Cutdown payload is in the air. Chase teams are en-route to recover this payload now. 

Live Tracking Links

Flight Track Prediction

The following is the predicted track for the balloon tomorrow. We will be targeting a 5m/s ascent rate, a 30km burst altitude, and 7.5m/s descent rate.

SSDV Experimental Payload – ‘Wenet’

Mark VK5QI and David VK5DGR have been working on a slow scan digital image payload for the balloon system which transmits at 115kbit/s on a new downlink channel. This system makes uses of the UKHAS SSDV server to stitch together images from packets uploaded by multiple receivers. It first flew on Horus 37, and after some refinement will be flown again on this flight. Information on this system is available here.

HD Video Camera Payload

We are also going to fly an upward facing and an outward facing camera, and hope to collect images of the balloon expanding and (hopefully) bursting, as well as some HD video imagery similar to what was achieved back on Horus 12. Thanks to Scott VK5TST and Josh VK5JO for the loan of the GoPro Hero3 cameras for this flight.

RTTY Telemetry

The standard RTTY 70cm telemetry payload will be flying as well. Listen out on 434.650MHz USB, 100 baud  ASCII-7N1. You can get involved through capturing telemetry data and relaying it back to the chase team via the Internet (details on how to setup and operate dl-fldigi are available here: ukhas.org.uk/projects:dl-fldigi

Flight Details

Visitors from the Amateur Radio service are welcome to come along to the launch this time (as it is not for a school or other organisation). Launch details at this stage are below, however keep watching the website closer to the time for confirmation and up to date details:

  • When: 13th November (Sunday), approx. 10AM CDT launch time.
  • Where: Mt Barker High School Oval

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Horus 37: Flight Success!

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We are pleased to report that the high altitude balloonhorus-logo-black flight of Horus 37 has been a success. The AREG Project Horus launch crew carried out the flight for Launchbox, a group which engages with the STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) in schools across the state.

http://www.launchboxspace.com/

Lift off was from Mt Barker High School at 10.00am, with landing occurring approximately 15km east of Mannum about 3 hours later.

8 payloads went aloft this flight. 5 from Launchbox and 3 from AREG. The new one for AREG was the experimental SSDV transmitter, which delivered live images from the balloon for a portion of the flight.

Launch

Launch was conducted under challenging conditions with squalls and wind gusts arriving about 20 minutes before liftoff. This caused considerable consternation from the launch team who were for a few minutes at risk of loosing or damaging the balloon before we had even gotten off the ground. However, through the skillful handling of the balloon by the AREG team, catastrophe was averted.

Once the balloon payload train was assembled, the countdown got underway. The weather eased and the flight finally got away safely.

Images from the Flight Ground Preparation and Launch

The Flight

The flight itself went well, although it had to be terminated earlier than planned. The team did not want it landing in the River Murray.

trackplot

Flight Track from half way through the flight

habhubtrack

Final Balloon Track – www.habhub.org

Lots of stations participated in the telemetry collection (thank you for your contribution).

SSDV Experimental Payload – ‘Wenet’

As indicated above, this flight carried a first time payload for AREG. Mark VK5QI and David VK5DGR have been working on a slow scan digital image payload for the balloon system which alternates between 19.2kbit/s and 115kbit/s on a new downlink channel. This system makes uses of the UKHAS SSDV server to stitch together images from packets uploaded by multiple receivers. To help this along during this flight, Andrew VK5AKH and Scott VK5TST headed to the back of the Mt Lofty ranges after launch and collected as much of the SSDV picture feed they could for relay to the internet.

Andrew VK5AKH and Scott VK5TST’s setup for SSDV

The SSDV capture software currently runs under Linux, with a screenshot of it running in a Virtual Machine on VK5QI’s CarPC below. The software is open source and can be found on GitHub. 

(courtesy Mark VK5QI)

In this case, the modem software is still very much under development, without any FEC capability currently. David VK5DGR and Mark VK5QI are continuing to develop the system and you may see it fly again in the near future with some enhancements.

The following is the Gallery of the shots taken by the camera received on SSDV during the flight:

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The following are some of the pictures downloaded from the camera after the flight:

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Landing and Recovery

The chase crew were lucky this time and were able to see the payloads land from about 400m away. It landed in a patch of scrub on the edge of a wheat field. After about a 1km hike we were able to successfully recover them. They landed in a patch of mallee scrub, so there was some judicious nudging required to bring them safely to the ground.

At the end of the day, here was the crew that undertook the payload recoveries

img_2959-medium

Flight Statistics

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Conclusion

AREG would firstly again like to thank Launchbox for the opportunity to be part of the STEM program in schools. We also want to thank all of the team who came out today in somewhat cold and wet conditions to get the launch off the ground. The team included: Matt VK5ZM, Mark VK5QI, Grant VK5GR, Andrew VK5AKH, David VK5DGR, Scott VK5TST, Kim VK5FJ, Gary VK5FGRY, Josh VK5JO and Scott VK5TST.

Thanks also to the amateur ground stations who made the effort to receive telemetry and provide it to the tracking data pool online:

VK5QI, VK5ZM, VK5KJP, VK5KX, VK5ZRL, VK5NEX, VK5APR, VK5ZEA, VK5AKH, VK5FJGM, VK5FLEX, VK5HS

Without you these flights are that much more difficult!

73’s de Project Horus