Abstract

Students from the Arizona/NASA Space Grant Consortium attended the Montana State University (MSU) Solar Eclipse Workshop in July 2016, where the MSU-designed ground station and payloads were assembled. The team returned with the systems, making modifications and conducting tests leading up to the eclipse in the following areas: ground station tracking and payload improvements, including expanded video capability. With the initial aid of Louisiana State University (LSU), the team upgraded the tracking system to use both Automated Packet Reporting System (APRS) beacons and MSU’s Iridium tracking system. This update improved the accuracy of determining the location of the balloon and payloads. The hardware improvements for the ground station included the addition of mobile HughesNet satellite internet service. Payload improvements included using medium-gain antennas, next generation Ubiquiti modems, and Raspberry Pi 3 computers. In addition, a 360 degree video camera payload was developed. The systems were tested over six balloon flights. During the solar eclipse, the team was in Glendo, WY, and flew the following payloads on two balloons: Digital Video Payload (DVP), Digital Image Payload (DIP), 360 Video Payload, Arizona State University (ASU) Scientific Payload, flight termination payload, and tracking payloads. Each of these payloads functioned correctly with the exception of DVP, possibly due to damage at launch, which meant the team was unable to live stream video during the eclipse. Instead, the team streamed an image slideshow to a NASA website during the eclipse with still images downlinked from the DIP. However, videos from both the DVP and 360 Video Payload were recovered after the flight and later processed. Overall the mission was successful in collecting video, images, and data of the eclipse from the high-altitude perspective.

How to Cite:

Fusco, M., Burklund, D. & Buck, S., (2017) “Arizona Space Grant Consortium Participation and Contribution During the 2017 Solar Eclipse”, Academic High Altitude Conference 2017(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.31274/ahac.5557