CNSP STEM Outreach & Menlo College April 21, 2014   The California Near Space Project STEM outreach program flew a high altitude amateur balloon for students from Menlo College, Atherton, CA.  Andrew Vargas was the Project leader and coordinator of the first high altitude balloon launch for Menlo College. The launch was called M.O.S.S. “Menlo Oaks Space Shuttle”. M.O.S.S. was launched from San Jose near Hwy 85 and Almaden...

The California Near Space project, with the help of several engineers including John Malsbury, Johnathan Corgan, and Ian Kluft, is developing an open source payload design. The objective of this design is to enable new balloon developers with an end-to-end framework with the following capabilities: Global Position and Status Reporting with Iridium Communications Two-Way Communications, with legacy support for APRS transmitters Support for...

  We wanted to let everyone know that the CNSP-18 payload made it back home from Morocco on January 18, 2014.   This long story started on December 2, 2012, when the California Near Space Project launched CNSP-18 on a long duration floater mission that flew from California to Morocco, covering 6,080 great circle miles. For the full story, see this page     On December 23, 2012, Don Ferguson, AI6RE received the good news that...

  The CNSP team has been working on research and development projects the past few months. One of our requirements with these projects is to accurately measure gas volume and gas molecules.   The Alicat Scientific Mass Flow Meter with totalization allows the CNSP team to fill with a precise number of gas molecules on the ground, so the lift and volume of the gas at altitude is just right. The accuracy in measuring the lift gas is...

Iridium Integration Challenges As mentioned in our previous posts, we are beginning to develop more sophisticated payloads. One of the features that we are adding is two-way global communications with Iridium. As payloads become more complex a number of issues pop up. First, the total labor required to design, program, and test the payloads. But the increase in effort is non-linear. Every interface, every additional programmer, and every...

Mission: Global, Two-Way Comms While APRS has served as the primary tracking system on our previous missions, the idea of having two-way communications capability in all geographic areas is appealing. We have investigated satellite communications for our future missions. Starting out, we considered several services, including: OrbComm Globalstar Iridium After talking with fellow balloonists and evaluating the options, we decided Iridium...

With the help of John Malsbury, the California Near Space Project has updated its website with a more modern appearance and features that should help us stay in touch with everyone.  With this new site, we hope we can provide a more educational and aesthetically pleasing experience to our visitors.  Soon, we will also begin posting technical content for people that are curious about endeavors. We look forward to seeing you...