KUPOW HAB

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l3g9aCnXtQ7kBVRpfCRGHjOg2XPamdgQ/view?usp=sharing

https://kupowspaceapps.wordpress.com

The project objective was to make students clear about how to launch the high altitude balloon (HAB), the cost estimation of the project, and any new ideas or materials that can be added to the balloon. So we went out and explored.

Introduction:

The High Altitude Balloon is a scientific tool used to reach 95% of the atmosphere which has a great future ahead. Because of the reason that it is cheap and easy to make. It can reach the outer atmosphere without any effort. More than 92 balloons are deployed daily to forecast weather. More than 500 balloons are deployed yearly for scientific research throughout the earth and more than 100 balloons are deployed yearly by hobbyists. It creates the opportunity for citizen scientists, researchers, and students to research and find data on their own. Generally, HAB is deployed so that it reaches the burst altitude and comes back with the help of a parachute safely. But the concept was not reliable because balloons would burst every time we launched the system. So we have proposed a new system that would help balloons to come back without bursting. Also, we have added the basic mechanism, physics and compared the cost estimation between the general method and our proposed model and the way to make it.

Objective to the purpose of the new plan:

• Every day 92 weather balloons are released throughout the world to predict the weather that means 33580 balloons only for weather forecasts, more than 5000 balloons are used for scientific purposes, and around 500 by hobbyists. The average cost for one balloon is 120 dollars. That means 4,113,600 dollars yearly is being used for balloons that burst in the atmosphere. So to control those funds we are proposing the new idea of HAB.
• In general HAB there’s no delay point where the balloon can stay steady till the scientific purpose is done. If we maintain the pressure equal to the weight to lift. We can delay the air which is a unique thing at a low cost.

How does our system work?

As we know that the net force on the system would be the sum of forces in one direction. For HAB, the net force in the upward direction would be equal to the difference of buoyancy to the weight and the drag force. If the net force is greater than one, the balloon will go in an upward direction, if they are equal the balloon would be stationary and if the net force is less then the balloon will go down. When the balloon goes higher the pressure is exponentially increased. Which would result an increase in volume and the balloon would burst at a certain altitude which is called burst altitude. But what we are proposing is to create a system that would reduce the pressure when it reaches the burst altitude by using some systems. Except for other payloads we need to add another mechanism for making the process possible. As a microcontroller for GPS and data logging is used in our system we are going to use the same microcontroller to make our system too. In addition, we are going to add a pressure gauge and solenoid valve to measure the pressure and release when the pressure inside the balloon is greater than the max pressure that a balloon can hold. Mathematically, we can find the max pressure of the balloon as we know the burst altitude from the calculator. So when the pressure gauge notes the max pressure, the solenoid releases the air by turning on and off for 100 millisec., until the pressure will be able to hold the mass that is equal to the payload mass and mass of the balloon. Due to which the balloon will be at the same altitude for the amount of time that the user desires. This will help to conduct the research at a specific altitude for a given amount of time. To code this we have used the Arduino and Arduino code which is attached below in google drive. 

After using the system our hope is:

1. To save millions of dollars wasted in buying ballon for daily operation

2. To make the researcher get data by creating delay time in the atmosphere

3. To avoid the use of parachute so that it can even be used in other planets having low air density to hold the parachute

Tools used:

For general HAB:

Weather Balloons

Parachute

Helium gas

Arduino Mega

Arduino Gps module

APRS

Additional tools required for our proposal

Pressure gauge

Solenoid Air valve

Softwares used:

Arduino Ide

HabHub to predict the path

Java-script io for making the volume calculator

Coding Language used:

Arduino

Java script

We used the references mentioned below to make our project. First of all, we used a pdf from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/195385334.pdf to find out all the procedures and ways that the high altitude balloon is launched and noted all the mathematical formulas that we needed. From the same slide, we also got information about other websites like hub hub, Astra that is used to predict the trajectory of the high altitude balloon. After going deep into those websites we found its github link and studied the codes that helped us build our own calculator. There we found that the coefficient of drag was required to calculate the forces.

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/dragco.html from here we found the coefficient of drag, that can be used for further more information and to solve all our queries about the high altitude balloon we watched in https://www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons/faqs . And we also get inspired by youtube videos which helped a lot.

Our team members being astronomy enthusiasts the space app challenge was a great opportunity for us to dig more into space science. It not only helped us to learn more about space but also taught us to coordinate and work in a team. This challenge provided an opportunity for us to learn about the atmosphere. We got to learn about the layers of the atmosphere including the mesosphere, troposphere, and stratosphere, and the activity that takes place in it. The project we aimed to do included many new concepts of physics like Archimedes' principle of the balloon mass system. The HAB balloon we created has trackers and the trajectory prediction was an important factor so we got to learn about the tracking and navigation system like HABHUB and ASTRA.

The journey started from preparing the proposal of the project to collecting the right material for the construction of HAB and estimating the cost of the whole project. The main setback we faced during this challenge was to prepare a cost-effective HAB. We used Arduino in place of a pre-wheeled tracking system and did not let the balloon burst in the atmosphere to reduce the cost.

we would like to thank NASO and the local judging authority for letting us participate in this challenge as it helped us to broaden the unique concept of stem projects used in space.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/195385334.pdf

http://habhub.org/calc/

https://github.com/cuspaceflight/cusf-burst-calc

https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/balloons.html

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/dragco.html

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/195385334.pdf

#HAB #NEPALHAB #KUHAB #NASOHAB #HAVEHAB #hardware #sapce #spacapplication

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.