HABITAT SkyLab High Altitude Basic Investigation Testing And Tracking HABITAT n. definition from dictionary when I can find one. Basically an environment, is the one I think applies here. Making this an environment for High Altitude Basic Investigation Testing And Tracking; a Laboratory in the Sky... HABITAT is an environment for research with a Sky Lab or Laboratory in the Sky. I plan to launch HABITAT SkyLab once a month, weather permitting. The HABITAT SkyLab group will be launching experiments with each flight. It is the goal of the HABITAT SkyLab mission to provide a means of experimentation for students, scout groups, other groups and individuals to study our atmosphere and earth. Reaching altitudes around 100,000 feet above the surface of the earth, many things are different than here on the ground. The atmosphere is only about 2% at an altitude of 80,000 feet.The air temperature drops to about 60 degrees F below zero. This provides opportunites to study things not possible here on the ground without expensive labratories and equipment. We are actively looking for schools, scout groups, students, church groups, and individuals that have ideas for experiments and/or an interest in study under these conditions. While we do not plan to be involved with the individuals on a personal basis (or take the place of the regular teacher or adult supervisors), we can provide speakers, videos or handouts for group discussion or presentation. In other words, we do not have the resources to interface directly with individuals; our purpose is to provide a vehicle and assistance for further application of current studies. While HABITAT SkyLab is meant to be a non-profit organization (work on incorporating as such is underway), we do accept donations to offset expenses. The normal expendable (non-reusable) costs for a flight are about $150 - $200. Additional expenses will be incured to notify schools and groups of our efforts. On any given flight I have about $2000 of equipment, but I will continue to bear these reusable equipment expenses myself. Understanding purchase of new equipment is based on available funds. The purpose of this endeavor is not to fund purchase of my toys, but to provide opportunity for others to benefit from them. I am building a HABITAT lab on the NETLAB (an online real time educational labratory) for additional study with the HABITAT SkyLab group. Currently the basic HABITAT SkyLab carries radio telemetry that will send back Time/Lat/Long/Alt data for tracking purposes. This data is acquired from an onboard GARMIN GPS-25 receiver and antenna, that is capable of tracking 12 sats at one time. We use an MFJ Data Radio which has 5 watts of rf power output. The data radio transmits on the current National APRS frequency of 145.79 Mhz. This provides us the widest coverage for tracking and telemetry retrieval. We have received tracking reports from east of St. Louis, MO and Arkansas. Both reporting stations are over 250 miles away. We believe we could have been heard farther away, but no notice was given prior to our launch. Our onboard TNC is a KANTRONICS KPC-3Plus. The TNC converts analog signals into digital and vice versa. This is the equivalent of a modem normally used with computers. The current onboard computer is a Counterfeit Stamp from SCOTT EDWARDS. The limitations of the stamp are causing us to look for another onboard computer. Also from SCOTT EDWARDS we have a SSC-II, a mini servo controller. This allows us to control movement on the capsule. Servos will be used to control cameras and other experiments. The onboard computer allows us to preprogram, monitor, and datalog experiments. Our current flight includes a SOUND EXPERIMENT. Recent movies had a teaser line something like: "In space no one can hear you scream". At 80,000 feet above the surface of the earth there is only 2% atmosphere. The sound experiment hopes to determine if there is enough atmosphere for sound waves to travel. Additionally we will be sending 2 color video cameras and a Amateur TeleVision transmitter. One camera is aimed down at about a 45 degree angle. The other is mounted looking up toward the parachute and balloon. The OBC will switch between the 2 cameras. The current program is to look down for about 7 minutes and then up for about 2. The FCC station callsign is viewed by the camera looking up. This will provide the required FCC identification in the maximum 10 minute intervals. At a point near the predicted balloon burst the OBC program will change the timing. Hopefully, catching the balloon burst on video. As the capsule drops there is not enough atmosphere (air) for the parachute to do much. The package falls about 6000 feet per minute until it reaches enough atmosphere for the parachute to slow the decent. We hope the video cameras will capture this and transmit it to us. This is an interesting study in itself. Our last launch we lost a 3D track. We had been locked on 6 to 8 GPS sats but dropped to 3 or 4. Unfortunately these were not able to provide an altitude record. This occurred at about 54,000 feet. A couple of theories were: ONE, that capsule started spinning preventing the GPS to lock onto the needed sats. TWO, the capsule swung like a pendulum causing the problem. Either way, with the video record we hope to determine what does happen on future flights. The root cause of this problem has been corrected, we hope. When building the parachute (8 ft dia.) we only made the spill hole about 6" dia. After building it we found out that spill hole should have been about 20% or 1 1/2 ft dia. CRIS expanded the spill hole to avoid this in the future. Another item that will be checked with the video arrangement is the balloon remains. The balloon package is normally configured: Balloon line Parachute shroud lines shroud ring line Capsule Once the balloon bursts it falls below the parachute/capsule on the line that connected it to the parachute. At which point the balloon remains fall below the parachute are not certain. It is my thought that once the parachute has enough air to capture the balloon would fall below. During the high altitude decent phase, I believe the package would just free fall. I do not know what drag is involved, with less than 2% atmosphere it would not be the drag we are use to here on the ground. All the drag calculations I have been involved with (Radio Control aircraft, model rockets, vehicle accident investigation and the like) have been basically ground based. I have not found any information on drag coefficients outside the ground atmosphere. If you know of any information on this please email me. I'm sure there is information out there on the WWW, but have not had time to investigate. This would seem to be an interesting area of study. The balloon will increase in size as it gets higher. At release it is about 7 ft. in dia, at burst it is about 35 ft. in dia. Since drag is based on atmosphere I'm not sure of the changes as the atmosphere decreases.