Inspired by the work of the UTARC team and their near trans-atlantic crossing with SNOX IV the aim of Atlas is to be a co-operative attempt to break the Amateur Highest GPS Reported Maximum Altitude with a balloon which at present stands at 120,522ft (36744m).

While in the early planning stages the present plan is to put together an exceedingly light payload and use a dual balloon system to lift the payload to up to an altitude of 130,000ft. Launching from EARS it will be necessary to carefully monitor the weather to chose a day when there is little to no wind (similar to the FHALP-2 launch) which will allow a slow ascent rate without the risk of landing in the sea.

The project is open to everyone who is involved in UKHAS, if you want to be involved get in touch either by email jacoxon@googlemail.com or join in discussions on #highaltitude on irc.freenode.net .

        ( )
       (   )
     (Balloon)
      (    )
        ( )
   ( )   |
  (   )  |
(Balloon)|
 (    )  |
   ( )   |
      \  |
       \ |
         ^
        /|\
       /_|_\
     Parachute
         |
         |
         |
      _______
     |Payload|
     |_______|

The plan is to use a Dual Balloon system to get to our targeted altitude, the 2nd stage (primary) balloon will lift the payload all the way to the target altitude while the 1st stage (secondary) balloon will be used to provide a rapid ascent rate allowing us to push through the jetstream without too much horizontal drift and reduce the flight time. The secondary balloon will be cut away allowing the primary balloon to lift the payload to apogee. At burst altitude the primary balloon will be cut and the payload will descend by parachute.

• Balloon
  • 1st Stage 1500g Kaymount
  • 2nd Stage 1000g Kaymount ?
• Parachute
  • Drogue? dual parachute system?
  • 18“ thin mil ripstop nylon chute (12g) - or 15” may do (8g)
• Payload (150g)
  • Badger1 Flight Computer (18km+ GPS, GSM and Radio (RTTY 434mHz))
  • Secondary radio beacon (on separate power supply)
  • Camera: Stripped down Premier DS-3080S (used on Peg I) aquired on ebay (requires 2 x AA lithiums and takes SD cards)
  • Cutdown - (pyro cutdown 2g)
  • Powersupply - tbd

• Atlas 1 - May 2008

• Flight Computer design - edmoore & fnoble
• Flight software - edmoore & fnoble
• Camera - obtain camera and weight reduce - provide flight computer interfaces (Power/Shutter) rocketboy
• Radio TX (434MHz,300Baud,200Hz shift,8bit,ASCII,RTTY) - interface logic level RS232 at 9600 baud rocketboy
• Parachute - obtain and modify for standard bottle top operation rocketboy
• Cutdowns - make rocketboy
• Cutdown circuit - develop lightweight cutdown circuit rocketboy
• Payload construction - everyone
• Administration + Weather - jcoxon
• Ground software (inc ASCII cocoamodem) - jcoxon

1. Design Mission + Assign Jobs - done

• Premier DS3080S Hack

• Atlas Downlink Software

• Atlas Hardware

• James Coxon (jcoxon)
• Ed Moore (edmoore)
• Steve Randall (rocketboy)
• Fergus Noble (fnoble)

• Energiser Lithium AA – 1.6V - 3000mAh – 14.5g (330mWh/g)
• Dual AA battery Holder 6g (274mWh/g battery + holder)
• Energiser Lithium AAA – 1.6V - 1250mAh – 7.6g (263mWh/g)
• Dual AAA batter Holder 4g (208mWh/g battery + holder)
• 2CR5 – 6V – 1500mAh – 37g (can be opened to give two 17g 3V tagged 1500mAh cells)(243mWh/g)

• TO220 Power FET 2g (cutdown)
• DPak Power FET 0.2g (cutdown)
• 10V - 6800uF Capacitor – 7g (cutdown)
• 10V - 1000uF Low Z Capacitor – 3.5g (cutdown)

• Li-Po batteries about 140mWh/g
• A123 rechargable lithiums 110mWh/g

• GU container (ID 110mm x 110mm x 110mm - ID 90mm x 90m x 86mm) - 24g

W0RPK Records