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02 November 2007

Poorman's Space Program

Paul Verhage What and Where is Near Space? If you've never launched a BalloonSat before, then the term near space is probably new to you. What you're about to do is very exciting. However, before you start, you need to become familiar with some terms.

Airplanes, Satellites, and their Altitudes There's a range of altitudes in which airplanes and satellites fly. Most aircraft fly at altitudes below 15 km (50,000 feet). Military spy planes, the U-2 (not the rock band) and SR-71 for instance, can fly at altitudes between 24 and 30.4 km (80,000 and 100,000 feet). Rockets and spacecraft like the X-15 and Space Shuttle reach higher altitudes still. Controlled air space tops out at 18 km (60,000 feet). In other words, the FAA doesn't control any flights above 60,000 feet. The international body governing the standards for awards in aviation is the International Aeronautical Federation (abbreviated FAI after its French name). According to the FAI, (outer) space begins at an altitude of 100 kilometer (62.5 miles or 328,000 feet). Between controlled air space and outer space is a region called near space. In most ways near space is closer to a space environment that a sea level environment. And so far, there's only one inexpensive way to fly experiments into near space, the weather balloon.

Climbing to Near Space As a balloon climbs into near space, several interesting environmental changes take place. First, as the balloon ascends, the cosmic ray flux climbs higher and the air temperature gets colder. The lowest air temperature occurs between 12 and 15 km (40,000 and 50,000 feet). Air temperatures in this atmospheric region will be as cold as -60 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer and may drop to -90 degrees in the winter. At an altitude of 15 km (50,000 feet), 90% of the atmosphere lies below the balloon. Above 15 km, the balloon has left behind the troposphere, where most weather occurs, and has entered the stratosphere.

Figure 1. This photograph over Central Oregon was made from the stratosphere in late October 2007 by one of the author's near space BalloonSats. Photograph by Paul Verhage.

The stratosphere is where the ozone layer begins. The distance to the horizon is 441 km (274 miles) at this altitude. This means an entire state might be visible along with some neighboring states. The atmospheric pressure at 19 km (63,000 feet) is equal to the vapor pressure of water at a temperature of 98.6 degrees F. In other words, body temperature liquids like your blood will boil at this altitude. This altitude is the Armstrong Line and it marks the beginning of the aerosphere. This is also the altitude where the level of cosmic radiation is normally at its greatest. Radiation counts several hundred times greater than sea level levels occur at this altitude. Above 23 km (75,000 feet), the sky begins changing from dark blue to black and cameras begin recording the Earth's curvature. The horizon is several degrees lower than at sea level, so there's more sky overhead than ground below. The distance to the horizon is now 539 km (335 miles). Ninety-nine percent of the air is below an altitude of 30.5 km (100,000 feet). So balloons at this altitude experience 99% of a vacuum. It's almost 644 km (400 miles) to the horizon and the horizon is more than five degrees lower than at sea level. At 31.4 km (103,000 feet) the air pressure is equal to the air pressure on the surface of Mars. The highest altitudes that amateur near space flights reach is around 36.6 km (120,000 feet), and it's rumored that US Air Force balloon flights have reached an altitude of 45.7 km (150,000 feet). You can see that conditions in near space are much closer to what astronauts experience in orbit than to what we experience on the ground. Near Space's combination of low air pressure and temperatures makes

it lethal to plant and animal life. Therefore, unless you design a life support system for them, it's not ethical to send organisms into near space. The one thing near space is not is a microgravity environment. Because of the 1/R2 nature of gravity, at an altitude of 30.5 km (100,000 feet), objects weigh 1% less than they do at sea level. Even during descent, microgravity conditions are not encountered. The ride down is too rough and chaotic for the free fall to create microgravity conditions.

The Near Spacecraft Your BalloonSat will not fly as a stand-alone vehicle. There is no way to track and recover a BalloonSat, as it doesn't carry the necessary equipment. Therefore, your BalloonSat is part of a larger vehicle called a near spacecraft. A near spacecraft consists of a booster and its fuel, a recovery system, and the modules of the vehicle.

Figure 2. This near spacecraft consists of a helium-filled weather balloon towing a train of electronic probes toward the stratosphere.

The Booster and its Fuel The booster that carries the near spacecraft into near space is most often a latex weather balloon. On some heavier flights the balloon may instead be a plastic zero pressure balloon (ZPB). The major difference between them is that a latex weather balloon will expand as it ascends and eventually burst. A plastic polyethylene zero pressure balloon, on the other hand, cannot expand. Therefore, a ZPB rises to a maximum altitude and then floats. Some sort of cutdown mechanism on the balloon will terminate its flight and bring the payload back to earth. Most often, a latex weather balloon will carry your BalloonSat into near space since a zero pressure balloon

is more expensive. Latex balloons are classified by their weight. Weights between 300 and 3,000 grams are available, with 1,200 and 1,500 gram balloons being the most popular for near space flights. The fuel, or lifting gas, of a balloon is traditionally helium. There are some risks associated with hydrogen, so it's not a popular lifting gas. Filled with helium, a weather balloon has a volume of around 8.5 kl (300 cubic feet) and stands about 2 meters (seven feet) tall.

The Recovery System This is simply a parachute carried in a pre-deployed position. A nylon cord, called the load line, attaches the balloon's nozzle to the apex, or top, of the recovery parachute. The load line is usually between 3 to 9 meters (10 to 30 feet) long. The rest of the near spacecraft hangs suspended below the parachute by the parachute shroud lines. When the balloon bursts or is cut away, the near spacecraft drops and the parachute opens. A near spacecraft can fall at speeds in excess of 160 km per hour (100 mph). And that's with the parachute opened! The air density is so low in near space that the parachute must fall up to ten times faster to feel like it's descending at a normal speed touch down speed of 11 km/hr (7 mph). Usually there are portions of the balloon still attached to the end of the load line. Since the load line is so long (around 6 meters or 20 feet long), the remaining balloon fragments will whip the parachute around during descent. This is pretty much why balloon descents can be so violent. One way to make the descent gentler on the payloads is to use a cut away device to separate the load line and balloon fragments from the parachute's apex. This lets the parachute do its job without someone tugging on its head.

The Tracking Modules These modules carry tracking electronics and frequently consist of a Styrofoam box or reusable lunch sack. However, they do tend to be larger in volume and heavier in weight than your BalloonSat. They contain the tracking equipment needed to recover your BalloonSat, and they may carry a set of their own experiments. There may be more than one tracking module for redundancy. The reason tracking modules are the first attached to the parachute shroud lines is so your BalloonSat can't fail and release the tracking modules from the parachute. Sorry, but tracking modules are more important than your BalloonSat. At the least, you'll find these electronic devices inside a tracking module. Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver Terminal Node Controller (TNC) Amateur Radio Antenna The GPS Receiver (or just GPS for short) listens to identification and timing signals from a constellation of satellites call NAVSTARS. By combining the timing signals of several satellites with a mathematical description of their orbits, the GPS can triangulate its position above the earth. That information, formatted into a standard called NMEA 0183, goes to the next device, the TNC. The TNC is essentially a modem for radios. The TNC accepts data from the GPS, changes it to a series of audio tones, keys the radio, transmits the tones, and then unkeys the radio. This method of sending digital data as audio tones over a radio is called packet radio. There's a standard format used to transmit position (and other data) called Automatic Packet Reporting System (or APRS). If you were to listen to a radio transmitting APRS data, it would sound like a brief burst of noisy, scratchy static. All TNC s can transmit

data, and many can receive it. The TNC s used on the ground to track the near spacecraft can almost always send and receive packet radio. However, the near spacecraft may have a TNC that can only transmit position data. Once launched, this kind of near spacecraft is autonomous and on its own. An amateur radio or ham radio is a radio that requires a license to use. Amateur radio usually transmits with greater power than the FRS radio or walkie-talkie with which you may be familiar. Likely the ham radio inside the near spacecraft will be smaller than a walkie-talkie. Stations hundreds of miles away will be able to hear and decode the APRS reports it sends. Without a good antenna , the near spacecraft will get lost when it's too far away for the strength of its signal. The small antenna (rubber duckie) on a walkie-talkie or FRS radio doesn't have much gain, or ability to transmit a strong signal. The near spacecraft will most likely have a long antenna trailing beneath it or a stiff wire antenna sticking outside the module.

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