Spacebridge gamma planned for Saturday 2010-05-01

Spacebridge is planning the next launch for this Saturday, May 1st 2010.The plan is to launch from Tracy, CA again.
The planned launch payloads consists of:

• One up-facing camera at a 45º angle -- Canon PowerShot A700 6MP Digital Camera
• One horizontal facing camera -- Canon PowerShot SD1100IS 8MP Digital Camera
• HTC G1 running AndroidAPRS -- T-Mobile G1 Android Phone
• Other radio equipment transmitting APRS data to http://aprs.fi

The up-facing A700 is to see what nature of light we can get at altitude. I think it would be awesome if we could get some good shots of stars, but I don't expect that. I am hoping to get interesting information on how long an exposure takes when aimed at the sky when there is hardly any atmosphere in the way.

There may be more, but that's as much as I know at this point.
I will keep you all updated and post the photographic & kml gps data

Yuri's Night 2010 at NASA

The Spacebridge project has been invited to present at the Exhibition of Space portion of the Yuri's night celebration at the NASA Ames Research Center near Mountain View (California).
The plan is to fill a balloon, tether it to three points on the ground with paracord and float a payload above our display.
The payload will consist of:
1) A USB Webcam
2) A Canon IS1100 camera taking still shots on an interval
3) Maybe other random electronic junk

We will also have a booth setup where we will be displaying a slide show of images from the first successful Spacebridge launch.

The schedule is as follows:

Friday:
0800-0830 - setup "booth" and inflate balloon
0800-0900 - inspection of exhibits
0900-1500 - Education day exhibitor hours.

Saturday:
0800-1000 - setup of Saturday exhibitions
1100-1200 - inspection of Saturday only exhibitions
1200-2100 - festival exhibition hours
2100-2400 - festival/party & exhibit tear down by hand

Sunday:
0900-1600 - tear down & load out.

If anyone out there in internet land is planning on going to Yuri's night at NASA, come on out and say hi.



Links:
Yuri's Night: http://yurisnight.net/
2010 Event at NASA Ames Research Center: http://ynba.org/

Spacebridge beta launch results

Well as I'm sure you have heard now, the launch of "Spacebridge beta" was a fail.
First we didn't bring enough (or the correct type) of batteries for the cameras.
Secondly we ran out of helium while filling the balloon.
Then when we lightened the payload in an attempt to send something into space it immediately flew into a tree.

From 2010-03-27 Spacebridge beta fail

Since we did have a balloon and a handful of stuff, we decided to send the "If found please call" tag with the balloon in hopes that maybe someone will find it and let us know where it landed.

2010-03-27 Spacebridge beta fail

Spacebridge beta launch today

The second Spacebridge launch is scheduled for today.
We'll be launching from Tracy, CA again.
Will be posting images from the flight after we retrieve the payload.

Noisebridge successfully launches And Recovers Spacebridge Alpha.

After two launches and total success having eluded us, we teamed up with the hackers from Noisebridge to assist in the launch of their project Spacebridge Alpha.
This proved to be quite the excellent merger of talents. They had been geeking-out on the positional tracking and long-range communication parts of their project but had little experience with successfully deploying a payload and seemed to lack photographic expertise. Luckily, that's what we had gotten right; where our flights had come short is what they excelled at -- we were experiencing synergy in action.
So we donated what we had, a hacked camera, parachute and anecdotal experience, and joined them for the launch. Below are pictures from the launch, photos from the flight and the on-board video. We do still plan to pursue our own space program, but for the time being, our two groups have merged.

Here are the images from the flight:

And the video of the launch:


Special thanks to our sponsor!