Aerospace Technologies Corp.

Dnipro | Near-Space Near You!

Awards & Nominations

Aerospace Technologies Corp. has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

Near-Space Y

High-Level Project Summary

We have designed, built and programmed cheap stratospheric probe, using accessible materials and components. With the help of our open-source materials, any student will be able to build his own stratospheric balloon for less than $120 and launch it to the near space. This project's goal is to encourage interest to the aerospace industry among the youth and show, that near-space is indeed near you! While working on this project, we came to understanding, that simple, yet multi functional hardware platform for stratospheric probe, that encapsulates all necessary assets for navigation, tracking and communication, would also come in handy for many scientific and commercial applications.

Link to Project "Demo"

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-8Dkf-Xc3UZ11p5GRmiIn6mQRyOk9-JKoTG7bAaKmCw/edit#slide=id.p

Link to Final Project

https://github.com/0pensorcerer/simple_balloon_firmware

Detailed Project Description

Challenge:

Develop a lesson-plan and bill of materials which teach students how to build a low-cost high-altitude balloon capable of reaching near-space.

Solution:

During this hackathon, our team have developed a cheap and simple stratospheric probe, using widely available materials and components. Arduino Nano board was used as the core of the system. Our system includes following modules: digital barometer BMP280, SD card reader , Neo6-M GPS module and Sim800 GSM module. To power the system, we used Li-Fe batteries, because of their higher cold resistance compared to Li-Ion batteries. We developed simple minimal firmware, using Arduino IDE. This firmware implements barometric data reading, GPS navigation and tracking, GSM communication and data logging to SD card.

In order to prevent freezing of the on-board electronics, we placed it in the box of thermal insulating foam. This material is cheap and widely accessible.edited

23:17

In opposite, some components on the board may overheat due to the very thin atmosphere on a higher altitudes not dissipating the heat efficiently. In order to prevent this, we decided to mount infrared radiators on this components.

Balloon itself can be made out of twenty microns thick polyethylene sheets. In total we will need sixteen square meters of polyethylene to make one balloon. Balloon may be filled either with helium or hydrogen. Even though hydrogen has a better performance, it is much more dangerous and difficult to handle. At the start of a flight balloon will be filled with 17L of helium, which will give us a lift force of 1.7kg. At an altitude of approximately 30km volume of balloon will increase up to 33L, which will cause the balloon to burst, and the probe will begin it's descent.

The cost of one balloon is estimated to be around $120.

StartUp:

While developing a simple high altitude balloon and communicating with mentors, we came up with the idea of developing a commercial product that would be a universal platform that would allow the buyer to plug its payload into the system under a standard protocol, It will provide reliable communication with the probe throughout the flight and ensure that the payload remains intact after the flight, as well as providing the buyer with precise coordinates to search for the probe.

The on-board computer of such an apparatus is developed on the basis of SMT32, reliable communication will be ensured by LoRa modules. The probe has a parachute for the safe lowering of the module. The board is powered by the same Li-Fe batteries.

If necessary, you can use our balloon platform ULBD

The cost of such a platform would not exceed $100, and given the cost of manufacturing, The logistics and mercetizing cost for the end user is close to $200, which is a reasonable charge for the buyer’s time saved to develop its home-made probe.

Space Agency Data

When we were researching how to build high altitude balloon, this webssite https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/balloons-txt.html , we learned a lot about constructing high-altitude balloons, for exaple, we discovered, that polyethylene used as a material for a balloon, and balloon itself is constructed from banana-peel shaped cuts of film.

This article also taught us a lot about high altitude balloons construction https://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code820/spb_design_approach.html

From this article we learned about material sciense for high altitude balloons https://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code820/spb_construction_modeling_analysis.html.

This materials provided us with a lot of valueble info about the effects of cosmic radiation on electronics and means to shield the electronics from cosmic radiation https://nepp.nasa.gov/docuploads/392333B0-7A48-4A04-A3A72B0B1DD73343/Rad_Effects_101_WebEx.pdf

https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/balloon/BWG_6_11_98/Mauk_Bruegman_folder/BWGpres21.ppt

Hackathon Journey

Even though our team has long history of participating in different tech and science related events and challenges, this is our first time participating in "NASA Space Apps Challenge". It was truly an amazing experience of excessing our ingenuity, imagination and knowledge to push the boundaries of what we are capable of as a team. This was also an amazing opportunity to meet truly interesting people and learn a lot of valuable data.

During this hackathon, we have extended our problem solving capabilities , learned to work better, as a team, and developed our hard and soft skills.

We learned the specifics of material science, used in high-altitude balloons and spacecrafts, learned to develop more efficient software and protect electronics from extreme environment of near space.

We have always been fascinated by the vast and endless space, the dark sky above, and the beautiful blue globe of our world far below. Reaching the edge of space was always one of our most cherished dreams. Our team already has some experience working on the project with the similar goals - project "Paradox" (our project to develop and build reusable rocket plane, able to reach near space). All these factors have inspired our choice of "Near-space near you" as our challenge.

We approached this project with the idea to make it as cheap, easy and accessible, as possible. We decided to use the most accessible materials and components and make all our code and schematics open-source, so everyone could recreate this project with minimal cost and effort, and contribute to worldwide aerospace enthusiast's community.

But, this choice of components led to some additional challenges. We were able to overcome most of them with the power of knowledge, ingenuity and team work, and with the help of useful insights from our dear mentors.

We would like to thank our mentors - Dmytro Khmara, Hanna Saryboha, Pavlo Usatiuk and Svetlana Sivilirova. Without their help we would have much harder time working on the project. We would also like to thank NASA for providing this amazing opportunity which is "NASA Space Apps Challenge"