MISSION STATEMENT
The UHABS-8 team will successfully develop an autonomous ocean recovery system for a BalloonSat that will be capable of carrying small payloads in a near-space environment and navigating itself to a designated destination upon a water landing up to 5 miles off the coast of eastern Oahu to collect data while testing COSMOS and recover the payloads from the ocean by the end of the Spring 2022 semester.
THE PROBLEM
What is a BalloonSat?
BalloonSat is an abbreviation for balloon satellite, but the name is also used to refer to small balloon satellites, comparable to the size of weather balloons (balloon diameters approximately 2-3 meters at launch). Balloon satellites have a wide range of uses, including measuring atmospheric data and testing satellite components. A typical BalloonSat mission will use a helium-filled weather balloon to rise to a near-space altitude of about 100,000 ft where the balloon bursts and the system descends via a parachute back to the ground, landing up to 100 miles from the launch site. These systems are tracked with GPS and retrieved upon landing to collect the recorded data and equipment onboard.
Why launch BalloonSats here?
At the University of Hawai’i at Manoa (UHM), the Hawai’i Space Flight Laboratory (HSFL) is interested in using BalloonSats to test the hardware and software they develop. Using BalloonSats would provide the HSFL a low-cost way of accessing a near-space environment to test components, instrumentation, and software and mission procedures.
Trouble with BalloonSats in Hawaii
Since a BalloonSat can land up to 100 miles from the launch site, BalloonSat missions launched in Hawaii face a unique challenge not encountered by similar programs: the islands are surrounded by ocean, making it likely a mission will land offshore and inaccessible for easy retrieval.
UHABS-8 Plan
While boats can be used to collect the payloads, those launching BalloonSats may not have consistent access to or funding for boat recovery missions. Therefore, a robust BalloonSat recovery system is needed to ensure the collected data and equipment used in Hawaii launches can be consistently retrieved to enable successful balloon satellite missions.