Remote Sensing on a Shoe String Budget: The Icarus Project and $150

I spoke to Oliver Yeh, one part of the duo of MIT students that created Project Icarus. He along with fellow student Justin Lee sent a small digital camera into near space to get a bird’s eye view of eastern Massachusetts. Now, people have been launching objects skyward to photograph the earth for a long time. But, this only cost Yeh and Lee less than $150.

How did they do it? With a $30 digital camera they bought used on Amazon, a latex balloon from an online supplier (somewhat thicker than a party balloon), a Styrofoam cooler, some insulation, a small parachute, a prepaid cell phone with extended battery and antenna, and about 65 cubic feet of helium.

In order to track the balloon, the team downloaded an application that runs on the cell phone to capture the GPS coordinates and transmit the location data. The phone could not send information once above 3000 feet so it also stored the track of the balloon’s flight. Software was also downloaded to the camera with instructions to snap a photo every five seconds.

The result is a sequence of photographs of the balloons journey. The most amazing are those taken at the balloons apex of near 93,000 feet.

Oliver said they had a good idea how long it would last and the approximate altitude the balloon would reach. The entire flight took about two hours and he eventually retrieved the balloon when it landed in a small field.

You can see the photos and read more details about this amazing project at the space.1337arts website. What’s next? Perhaps a transatlantic flight where Oliver says the challenge will be to try and maintain a more constant altitude during the journey.