Another brave squirrel is preparing for flight and a perilous journey to the sky next Monday. Development on the FS4 payload is complete and only a few last-minute assembly tasks remain to be completed prior to launch. Barring adverse weather conditions (Wind), Flying Squirrel #4 will launch on Jun 17th 2019 from the area around […]

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Flying Squirrels, FS3, Ham Radio, High Altitude Balloon, Mission Goals, Telemetry

FS3 Post Flight Post Summary

December 13, 2018

Two of the primary goals of every Flying Squirrels mission is to: 1. Have Fun! 2. Learn stuff. We certainly had a lot of fun! A bunch of middle-aged hacker Geeks are never too old to play with a big balloon and laugh about it! And no matter the outcomes, we learn and use this […]

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Flying Squirrels, FS3, FSQ, HAB, Ham Radio, High Altitude Balloon, Mission Goals, Telemetry, WSPR

Flying Squirrel #3 in a Nutshell

December 6, 2018

A Quick Users Guide to the Flying Squirrel #3 High Altitude Balloon Project. The mission of the Flying Squirrels is to promote STEM (Science Technology, Engineering & Math) skills in a fun project environment. All persons interested in Flying Squirrels are welcome to participate in the project. Our third balloon, Flying Squirrel #3 is ready […]

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Arduino, Flying Squirrels, FS3, FSQ, HAB, Ham Radio, High Altitude Balloon, Mission Goals, Telemetry, WSPR

Announcing Flying Squirrel #3

October 24, 2018

The Flying Squirrel #3 Project – FS3 High Altitude Balloon The Flying Squirrels have been restless to take flight again, now that the weather in the Mojave Desert launch locations have returned to non-inferno level temperatures. Our next intrepid explorer, FS3, is working towards a November launch. Exact launch date is still TBD. The date […]

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Flying Squirrels, FS2, Mission Goals

Where did our squirrel go? – Summary of the FS2 Flight

May 21, 2018

Our brave squirrel #2 is now lost in the Mojave desert. Perhaps FS2 joined the army or needed to phone home via the Goldstone Deep space antenna network. The telemetry showed a deep decent at the end; indicating it was going to ground and the signal was probably lost because of mountains all around that […]

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FS2, Ham Radio, High Altitude Balloon, Mission Goals, Telemetry, Uncategorized

A short FS2 flight summary – more to come.

May 20, 2018

(This is a repost from the Facebook page.) FS2 was a very interesting (Strange) flight. FS2 flew a very slow circle around our launch site and then went in a northerly direction into Ft Irwin. FS went nowhere near the predicted path to the east. The balloon did not have the desired lift, so it […]

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Flying Squirrels, FS2, HAB, Ham Radio, High Altitude Balloon, Launch Announcement, Mission Goals, Telemetry

The Flying Squirrel #2 Mission

May 16, 2018

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. […]

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Arduino, Flying Squirrels, Ham Radio, High Altitude Balloon, Mission Goals, Telemetry, WSPR

Introducing Flying Squirrel #2

March 18, 2018

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 […]

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Arduino, Flying Squirrels, High Altitude Balloon, Mission Goals

FS#1 – A word from the accounting department – The cost of FS#1

February 24, 2018

One of the goals of the Flying Squirrel mission was to keep the project “affordable” so that a STEM education program or individual can afford to conduct similar missions. The arbitrary chosen goal was to keep the cost per flight under $50.00 USD. The spreadsheet below shows what the FS#1 flight costs were. Spoiler alert, […]

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Flying Squirrels, Ham Radio, High Altitude Balloon, Mission Goals, Telemetry

FS#1 – Flight Telemetry Data

January 19, 2018

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, […]

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Squirrel Engineering

FS4 flight planned for June 17th 2019

FS3 Post Flight Post Summary

Flying Squirrel #3 in a Nutshell

Announcing Flying Squirrel #3

Where did our squirrel go? – Summary of the FS2 Flight

A short FS2 flight summary – more to come.

The Flying Squirrel #2 Mission

Introducing Flying Squirrel #2

FS#1 – A word from the accounting department – The cost of FS#1

FS#1 – Flight Telemetry Data