The Flying Squirrel #2 Mission
Intro Flying Squirrel #2 (FS2) high altitude balloon is planned for launch the morning of May 19th 2018 at 10AM (approx.) from Lucerne Dry lake bed in Lucerne Valley, CA. FS2 will send telemetry using WSPR to send 6-digit grid squares and uses the FSQ data mode to send more detailed position and telemetry data. […]
Weather forecasts continue to be good for launch on Saturday May 19th. Winds are predicted to be light. I ran a prediction comparing a theoretical launch today (May 16th) vs our planned launch on the 19th. I combined both predictions into a single graphic below. As you can see the winds today would carry the […]
Our studious squirrel spent another night hanging out in the yard for final testing. The FS2 hardware is complete and this is the first “On the Air” outside using the 20m dipole antenna. FS2 is hanging from a flag pole with the “balloon” end of the antenna suspended about 25 feet in the air. The […]
Save the date(s) The launch date for FS#2 is set for Saturday May 19th, 2017 10 AM with a backup date on May 20th. The location of the launch will be near Anderson Dry Lake inside the Johnson Valley OHV area. More details, including an exact location, will be published closer to the launch date […]
Our eager squirrel was anxious to try out its new insulated hutch in the back yard and test the battery endurance overnight. Powered by a 3.2V 400 mah LiFePO (Lithium iron phosphate) battery, FS2 remained powered up for just under 16 hours. (15 Hrs 50 mins) This is excellent news because the flight hardware will […]
While SpaceX’s Starman gets to drive through space in a luxurious Tesla Roadster, Flying Squirrels have to fly in Styrofoam class. The 1” thick Styrofoam enclosure will keep the flight electronics and battery warm in sub zero temperatures that are found at high altitudes. Our intrepid squirrel will also be wearing a stylish pink fiberglass […]
[This schedule is out of date. The new schedule is located at : ] This is the final FS2 Telemetry schedule. The columns labeled “Min” is the minutes into the hour (i.e. 0 = top of the hour) that the scheduled event should happen. The schedule repeats after 30 minutes. Launch is tentatively targeted for […]
High altitude balloons are expected to drift, in the atmosphere. But Flying Squirrel #2 (FS2) has had some drifting problems of another kind. During construction as the FS2 flight electronics went from a breadboard prototype to final construction, a problem emerged. FS2 was not WSPRing clearly. In fact, it seemed to be more of a […]
Introducing our next intrepid sky traveler. The burning question of the Flying Squirrel #1 mission is “Where did it go?” and ultimately, “Where/when did it land?” So far the final resting place of FS1 has not been reported by anyone on the ground. It could be lost in the mountains and deserts of South […]
The Flight of a Brave Squirrel I spent time cleaning up the FS1 Telemetry data and turned it into and Excel spreadsheet and the following graphs. The FSQCal program we used to decode the FS1 telemetry will record all the perfect message packets into the file fs1.txt as part of the protocol, […]
