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Sputnik 2010 a loggable Space Cache!


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The Geocaching Amateur Interorbital Alliance (G.A.I.A) is pleased to announce the upcoming launch of 'Sputnik 2010', a geocache that will travel into space and actually be available for any cacher to log! How is this possible, you ask? Are we prepared to equip every cacher on earth with their own personal hamster-powered space craft to propel them deep into space?! Unfortunately not... instead 'Sputnik 2010' will rise into the heavens via a high altitude weather balloon that will ascend anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 ft into the stratosphere. Once at that altitude, the expansion of helium inside the balloon will cause it to burst allowing Sputnik to drift back to Earth with the aid of a parachute where it shall be tracked and retrieved via GPS beacon. Once it lands this cache will be hidden at or close to the landing spot and will be available for all geocachers to hunt! This historical cache will be launched in North Carolina during the upcoming Event Horizon (GC2JPJK) on December 18. Be there and be a part of caching history! This event was published with special permission from Groundspeak. To find out more, please be sure to visit: http://gaia.terrasunder.org

 

gaialogo-large.jpg

Edited by Woyi and Waya
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If memory serves me right, something very similar to this was done a few years back using a small rocket.

 

How do you plan on making sure that the final position is on permissible property, within 528' from another cache, and can reasonably be hidden from view? How far from the landing point are you willing to move it to fit the guidelines and other requirements?

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If memory serves me right, something very similar to this was done a few years back using a small rocket.

 

How do you plan on making sure that the final position is on permissible property, within 528' from another cache, and can reasonably be hidden from view? How far from the landing point are you willing to move it to fit the guidelines and other requirements?

 

I believe there intent is to follow the guidelines.

The finale cache location may end up miles from the landing spot. Do to Groundspeaks guidelines.

 

I doubt they went to all the trouble of planing the launch.

Obtaining all the permissions and not have planed for the end game.

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Salutations folks,

 

Thank you for the cute, interesting and diverse comments about the launch. To answer a few questions brought up:

 

On Landings: There is always a possibility it could land in a field, up a tree, and yes... even become an accidental LPC in a Walmart parking lot :sad: but we've done the best we could based on the projected ascent/descent rate (using balloon trajectory calculators that work off current and projected weather/wind data) to ensure it lands somewhere away from residential areas, highways and water. And the GAIA team is prepared for numerous recovery options including tree-climbing gear and a boat for unusual recoveries.

 

Our hope is that we can get the cache placed at or very close to the landing GZ (and members of the GAIA team have been known for imaginative cache hide methods). Should the final cache land somewhere on private property or elsewhere, we will be moving it to an area as close to the landing GZ as permissible by Groundspeak guidelines and will be working live with Groundspeak and the state reviewer to get the cache published with those final coordinates (thanks to the folks at Groundspeak and NCreviewer for working with us on making that happen that way)

 

On Passengers: Well.. there won't be alot of room for any children :laughing: on the payload but there will be some travelers along on the ride including Gnome tags of each of the Groundspeak founders generously provided by the folks at Groundspeak that like the concept of going to space and back again, even if only by proxy.

 

More Information: You can find more information on High Altitude Balloon or Near Space research and projects by looking those italicized words up in your favourite search engine or on youtube for some awesome projects that have been done and usually some awesome pictures and videos to go with that. Speaking of which, we plan on have two 720p video cameras and one 3MP still shot camera taking multi view shots of the entire trip up and back again that will be put online after retrieval (if all goes well, of course, hehe).

 

Once again, thank you for the comments and queries. Hopefully, all goes well and we'll have some tales to tell and some pictures and videos to go with them B)

Edited by Woyi and Waya
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<snip>

Sputnik did nothing but

beep

<snip>

It had to start somewhere.

sputnik1a.gif

 

Launch Time: Friday, October 4, 1957, 19:12 UTC (Greenwich Mean Time)

Launch Time: Friday, October 4, 1957, 22:12 MSK (Moscow Standard Time at the launch site)

Launch Time: Friday, October 4, 1957, 15:12 EDT (3:12 p.m.)

Launch Site: Baikonur Complex, U.S.S.R.

Signal from Sputnik first heard on U.S. radio: The evening of Friday, October 4, 1957.

Sputnik I burns up as it reenters Earth's atmosphere: January 4, 1958.

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Sorry, but you're not the first to do this :laughing:

 

Nevertheless, good luck with your project.

 

Thank you very much for that information, it seems we stand corrected. We will have to be content with being the first on the east coast to attempt this little cache experiment or at the very least the first caching event to feature it. Nevertheless, the launch will continue as planned.

Edited by Woyi and Waya
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Sorry, but you're not the first to do this B)

 

Nevertheless, good luck with your project.

That is probably the one that I had deja vu about. Do you recall if that one was discussed here in the forum at the time?

Yes, it was. Funny how that thread title is almost exactly the same as this thread's original title :sad:

 

Apparently there are no original ideas left. Everything has been done before :laughing:

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On Landings: There is always a possibility it could land in a field, up a tree, and yes... even become an accidental LPC in a Walmart parking lot :sad:

 

If this ends up being a tree cache does the finder have to climb it to log it? :laughing:

 

In all seriousness though I think this is a great idea and hopefully generates some good PR for the hobby! Good luck!!

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Sorry, but you're not the first to do this B)

 

Nevertheless, good luck with your project.

That is probably the one that I had deja vu about. Do you recall if that one was discussed here in the forum at the time?

Yes, it was. Funny how that thread title is almost exactly the same as this thread's original title :sad:

 

Apparently there are no original ideas left. Everything has been done before :laughing:

Nice work!! I tried to search for it, but I was thinking that the older one was done from a rocket.

 

I agree with you that this is a cool idea, even if something similar has been done before.

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Forgive me my ignorance, but doesn't the Jet Stream generally go east in North Carolina? Today, for example, it is going about 140 mph almost due East. At that speed, if the balloon spends more than a couple hours above 20,000 feet it will be way out over the Atlantic Ocean. So wouldn't launching the balloon from somewhere in the Western USA make a lot more sense?

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Forgive me my ignorance, but doesn't the Jet Stream generally go east in North Carolina? Today, for example, it is going about 140 mph almost due East. At that speed, if the balloon spends more than a couple hours above 20,000 feet it will be way out over the Atlantic Ocean. So wouldn't launching the balloon from somewhere in the Western USA make a lot more sense?

 

Yes, the jet stream and our proximity to the east coast does affect the trajectory of the balloon but it's all in the ascent rate (determined by the payload weight, balloon size and the amount of helium) and the descent rate (drag from the parachute and its size and the payload weight). Our trajectory projections based on current weather patterns and projected future weather patterns and our estimated ascent/descent rates has it landing well enough away from the coast (of course, this all varies according to the weather conditions closer and closer to the launch date and any variations that may be introduced.

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Sure hope it doesn't land on top of a lamppost in a Walmart parking lot!!! :laughing:

 

Or land on your head!

 

I once worked on a weather station (Raoul Island in the Kermadecs S29 14.699 W177 55.752). We released a radiosonde balloon one day and at at first it tracked west and then as it got higher it started tracking east again. When it got to its burst height (~30,000 metres) it was directly overhead the met station. I was off duty lying on my back in the grass beside the met station. The balloon could be seen as a distinct white dot in the cloudless sky.

 

The all of a sudden it disappeared, followed by yells from within the office as the tracking instruments acknowledged the burst.

 

The balloon was around 2 metres in diameter when it was released at ground level. I've always wondered how big it must have grown to be seen from 30 kilometres away.

 

Just to bring my yarn back to geocaching there's an archived cache on Raoul Island

Edited by Huntleigh
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Being a rocket scientist and all, I'm curious about the recovery parachute deployment. Does the chute get deployed at the balloon bursting point, or do you have altimeter electronics to deploy the chute at low altitude on return? With rockets, you can get very accurate LZ prediction when you allow a streamer free fall from apogee and have an altimeter deploy a chute at 500-1000 feet AGL to slow the decent down enough to avoid impact damage.

 

Hope your venture goes perfectly!

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Being a rocket scientist and all, I'm curious about the recovery parachute deployment. Does the chute get deployed at the balloon bursting point, or do you have altimeter electronics to deploy the chute at low altitude on return? With rockets, you can get very accurate LZ prediction when you allow a streamer free fall from apogee and have an altimeter deploy a chute at 500-1000 feet AGL to slow the decent down enough to avoid impact damage.

 

Hope your venture goes perfectly!

 

I believe I saw a schematic drawing on the website... it showed the parachute as part of the suspension rigging.

 

Already deployed, ready to inflate after burst... a fairly standard approach to balloon launches. Of course the parachute doesn't offer much drag at altitude... but will as things get lower and the air denser.

Some groups use multiple balloons... and the fancier rigging involved. One bursts and the thing starts down.

The chute is used for cutdowns or whenever too many balloons pop. If it is a slow descent without the chute in use, the drift can be significant. On thing to consider is that the air mass over a certain altitude is almost still... one reason the balloon that drifts east on launch and with any high altitude winds, will almost always back up while at altitude... it is standing still horizontally while the earth turns to the east fast. It will vary based on conditions for each launch of course... the only standard is the earth rotation... winds are fickle.

 

I'll look and see if I can find a link... to a series of pics of a balloon burst... latex is very brittle when frozen solid... one pop can take out other balloons if not spaced apart... neat to watch anyway.

 

edit: My fave is not around, but just search for high altitude balloon burst videos...

 

Anyway I hope the launch goes as planned... I've been to many where it was weathered out.

I didn't see any mention of APRS tracking or LIVE TV on this thing... perhaps no HAMS there!

We did that basic thing once... Live data is more fun... see seems to be gone away...VBX (Vernon Balloon Experiments).

 

Anyway good flying and recovery, I'm too far away to attend, but I'll monitor.

 

Doug 7rxc

Edited by 7rxc
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7XRC is correct. We are using a parachute that is suspended between the payload and the balloon. From previous balloon launchers I've learned that in the upper atmopshere we can expect it to get up to almost 150mph on the decent, but once it gets to the lower atmosphere it will start to slow down and the chute should finally come to a decent speed of 15mph.

 

The two balloon issue is one that we went back and forth on: the biggest pro to the argument is that it reduces the risk of a catastophic failure from the chute opening. The biggest con... we live near the coast and the 2nd balloon greatly increases the drift time.

 

someone else mentioned the lack of hams... true. We are going kosher for this one. We are using the Spot 2 Messenger (GPS reciever and sattelite transmitter). We have already established a twitter account where we will be updating the lat/long cords as we get them for all to follow in real time!

 

oh and if this cache lands in a parking lot and the only way of hiding it is under an LPC... well, I would rather archive the whole project!

 

Echo Six Charlie

Team Lead

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...We are using the Spot 2 Messenger (GPS reciever and sattelite transmitter)...

Echo Six Charlie

Team Lead

How are you making the Spot transmit? Doesn't a button have to be pushed to send coordinates? Are you wiring in some sort of timer to make it transmit at certain intervals?

 

The specs call for a relatively high temperature and a fairly low service altitude...

"Rugged unit works in extreme temperatures (-22° to 140°F) and altitudes (-328 ft. to 21,325 ft.) and can be submerged 1m for up to 30 minutes".

 

Why not use the radiosonde used by the National Weather Service? They've gotten to be so cheap the NWS no longer tries to recover them.

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...We are using the Spot 2 Messenger (GPS reciever and sattelite transmitter)...

Echo Six Charlie

Team Lead

How are you making the Spot transmit? Doesn't a button have to be pushed to send coordinates? Are you wiring in some sort of timer to make it transmit at certain intervals?

 

The specs call for a relatively high temperature and a fairly low service altitude...

"Rugged unit works in extreme temperatures (-22° to 140°F) and altitudes (-328 ft. to 21,325 ft.) and can be submerged 1m for up to 30 minutes".

 

Why not use the radiosonde used by the National Weather Service? They've gotten to be so cheap the NWS no longer tries to recover them.

 

The spot can be set to continually give updates every 5 minutes, as for altitudes, well, we will see other people that have launched a balloon with the Spot2 continue to receive reports up to about 60K feet.

 

Also, we are using the Spot because of how simple it is. There is no special software/hardware, it is user friendly and has support.

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Despite the countdown clock reset, I notice that the tracker is moving on the progress tab at

their website... moving east and up?

 

edit: I've zoomed on their track and it was up for a while before I saw it.. it's either down now or

above 60k... will keep watching. They are not up to date on their information feed though.

 

Doug 7rxc

Edited by 7rxc
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Getting some more now... 12 seems to be missing... Looks like the first satellite memorial balloon is heading for the site of the first heavier than air flight at Kitty Hawk... hope that thing is waterproof and floats!

I'm seeing a timing discrepancy on the plots... don't know if that is due to manual plotting or not... or just the delay that seems to be part of SPOT, but it seems to me that it is just not right for some reason...

 

Still nothing on the suggested twitter link... last was 19 hours or more.

 

edit: Now it is active...

edit2: Looks like it is over, just have to find and recover it...

 

Doug 7rxc

Edited by 7rxc
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SUCCESS! The balloon went up at about 9:30 AM yesterday and the spot2 began transmitting its position. After about 30 minutes we stopped receiving any signal which meant that the cache had risen greater than 60,000 ft (most commercial GPSr's have an enforced cutoff at about this altitude). After about an hour we started receiving signal again which meant it had already started its descent. Several groups of geocachers took off to try and get the coveted FTF! The cache landed around 11:30, by this time it had traveled 124 miles and touched down in the town of Plymouth, NC. When the retrieval team arrived we realized that it had landed in the woods behind somebody's private property. Fortunately, the landowner was home and was actually pretty interested when we explained to him what we had come there to do. He even lent us a ladder just in case the cache was stuck in a tree. Fortunately it was not! We retrieved the cache and all the recording equipment and have some amazing pictures and videos that we will publish as soon as we finish sorting everything out. The landowner was so interested in the cache and the whole project that he offered to led us keep the cache on his private property! Sputnik 2010 now resides in the woods behind his house, just behind his horse pasture, exactly where it landed. Thank you to everyone who showed interest in this project, we hope many of you will have a chance to hunt this amazing cache someday. If you haven't seen them yet, here are some of our awesome pictures:

 

Pic showing the curvature of the Earth

0180715e-b44e-4b74-8d86-9e57cd285d8f.jpg

 

The cache suspended in nearspace

1648fc67-8cb6-42f3-a063-0ee4340e2a94.jpg

 

The cache and the container holding the cameras at the retrieval site

7bf46a3d-7d27-424e-b2f9-10690b61f871.jpg

Edited by Woyi and Waya
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'Sputnik 2010 : A Geocache Odyssey' (the "movie") is now available for viewing on the GAIA website!

2cdb789e-9332-4f6f-82f3-5bd3b632e8c9.jpg

It's a full-length (seriously, it's 2+ hours long) movie with footage and pictures covering Sputnik's (GC2JPJJ) journey from start to finish, including footage from the Event Horizon! (GC2JPJK), the launch, an awesome synchronized split-screen view from all 3 of the recording devices that went up with Sputnik during the entire trip as well as footage from the recovery. Look for the new "the Movie" tab at the top of the GAIA website! (http://gaia.terrasunder.org)

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