Space Glider project, UAV to the edge of space

[Tristar500]

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to share the project I'm working on. It was featured in the August Issure of Fly RC.

It's our humble attemp at controlled flight at the very edge of space. We are lauching this fall to over 100,000 ft.

Lawrence Feir
Space Glider Project

[PHaze]

Sounds cool. Got a link?

[Tristar500]

Innovationrobotics.com , My website.

I'll be doing some major updates real soon.

[kd7ost]

That is cool. Can you give out any secret information? What kind of guidance package do you have? All home made or off the shelf parts or both?

How much will it all weigh?

What are you using for batteries?

Sounds like a lot of technical details to work out. How will you separate from the weather balloon?

Very cool project. I like it.

Dan

[LukeZ]

Sounds really neat, I'll be keeping up with your progress. No doubt you've already seen the GliderSonde (http://members.shaw.ca/sonde/index.htm) page... I keep wondering if the guy that did that might one day pop up on this forum. I know at least for me that his project was quite a motivation, it really got me started in this whole hobby.

Anyways, I like the idea. Please keep us updated.


Luke

[Tristar500]

Guidance system is GPS based (OEM module, Microprocessor controlled) Some off the shelf stuff, some proprietary. All up weight is around 8 lbs.

Batteries are one use Lithium. These give the best performance of any type of battery and do well in extreme cold. The outside air temperature at our peak altitude will be in the area of -90 degrees so adequate insulation is a must as are numerous heaters to keep the vitals warm. We break the kevlar line to the balloon with a pyrotechnical device.

I wonder what ever happened to the GliderSonde guys? They never made it to their target altitude and there hasn't been any updates in a couple of years.

I'll have some updated photos of the current version of the Space Glider Project soon. Thanks for your interest guys!

[LukeZ]

Lawrence, that's a clean looking ship. I see some strange things aft, almost looks like a prop: is this a powered version for testing? I guess that would explain the air scoops on the rear fuse...

[kd7ost]

Also,

How are you going to track it? Will you be using APRS at 2 meters with internet access through an I-gate to Findu.com by any chance? I would like to watch the proceedings from home here.

What is your scheduled launch/flight date and time?
I belong to the TVNSP, (Treasure Valley Near Space Program) so have a high interest in this activity. You can see our own launch data and pictures at http://www.tvnsp.org/ Feel free to peruse the photo gallery. My own work is in "Member projects" then "Dan's projects".

Dan

[Tristar500]

Hi Gang,

Got the cutdown timers made today. They serve as a backup should the Space Plane fail to receive the cutdown signal from the ground.

Also, pulled a fresh radome from the mold today. Tested the GPS and Telemetry signals through the radome and all is right with the world. :D

I'm shopping around for a suitable 900 mHz yagi antenna for our ground station. Still undecided on the final design of the onboard antenna. Omni, directional duel antennas (switched)

Progressing... :cool:

[Greg_Granville]

Sounds really neat, I'll be keeping up with your progress. No doubt you've already seen the GliderSonde (http://members.shaw.ca/sonde/index.htm) page... I keep wondering if the guy that did that might one day pop up on this forum. I know at least for me that his project was quite a motivation, it really got me started in this whole hobby.
Anyways, I like the idea. Please keep us updated.
Luke

This project got me thinking about doing a Near Space Glider too. It seems that he has a totally new design on the drawing board now. See: http://artvb.oatmeal.dhs.org/
Looks like he is applying some lessons learned from the first design. In Mk I he used only inertial sensors for attitude control. I believe I would use thermopiles since they are cheap, small and give a reliable absolute attitude reference. Should make the autopilots job a lot easier. Art's successes are definitely an inspiration.

[LukeZ]

SWEET! Thanks Greg, I've been waiting for that page for a looong time.

Luke

[Tristar500]

Progressing. We are hoping to do a test of our telemetry systems this weekend. We are going to be using a 3 meter glider (Condor Magic from Hobby Lobby) The condor is a really beautiful scale glider that has an excellent glide ratio and a good deal of interior space for the avionics. We’ve had few bugs to work out of our guidance system and then we will bring the modem onboard and ready for flight testing and a radio modem range test. Here's a couple of pics.

[stjobs]

Very cool project. The website states that it will reach Mach .7 during the initial descent... will there be a large amount of heat build-up, or is still in enough atmosphere to prevent this? If so, did you incorporate any kind of insulated tiles?

[AeroRon]

Very cool project. The website states that it will reach Mach .7 during the initial descent... will there be a large amount of heat build-up, or is still in enough atmosphere to prevent this? If so, did you incorporate any kind of insulated tiles?

The website states that the glider will be released at 100,000 ft. At that altitude, the temperature is -40.87 degrees fahrenheit. Even with a velocity of 478 mph, heat buildup will be the least of their concerns. They're probably more concerned with freezing their components.

-Ron

[kd7ost]

The space shuttle, from the vacuum of space hits the atmosphere starting out at 28,000 KPH. It is also very large so at that speed it compresses one heck of a lot of gas molecules to the point of superheating. In fact it hits so fast that if the angle isn't correct, if it's pitched too high for example, it will actually skip off the atmosphere. (Too steep and she burns up) This all starts at about 65 miles above the earth surface. at 100,000 feet or about 22 miles he will effectively already be in the atmosphere. Although the atmosphere at that altitude closely resembles the atmoshere of Mars.

You might have to cut and paste these but just for a different activity they're fun to look at. The first link is to the construction and final photos of a capsule I dropped away via DTMF codes from over 90,000 feet. Crunching the numbers shows it hit 366 mph on the descent. Thats about .6 or .7 mach. It's small and the foam nose didn't melt. ;-) The chute deployed via GPS altitude information and Basic Stamp micro controller once it fell through 20,000 feet. It took about 2,000 feet to actually be under canopy. The second link is the pix from the launch and recovery of both capsules. Mine is the kd7ost-11 capsule.

I'm very much looking forward to this project and the results. This is totally cool. I'm going to try it some day if the world ever slows down a little.

Dan

http://www.tvnsp.org/modules.php?set_albumName=Aurora&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

http://www.tvnsp.org/modules.php?set_albumName=TV04B&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

[Greg_Granville]

The website states that the glider will be released at 100,000 ft. At that altitude, the temperature is -40.87 degrees fahrenheit. Even with a velocity of 478 mph, heat buildup will be the least of their concerns. They're probably more concerned with freezing their components.

-Ron

I think the cold temperature issue is easily managed. With foam insulation and some internal heat being generated, the internals can be kept much warmer than the outside air. With some onboard thermal sensors, the insulation level could be tweaked with the data from a few initial flights.

I'd think the entry into a stable, properly trimmed out glide would be one of the biggest challeges. When first released at 80-100K feet, there would be virtually no attitude control until speeds built and it dropped into the 60K foot range. The autopilot needs to be able to sort out the control corrections for an aircraft that is possibly tumbling and gyrating very rapidly. It needs to apply the corrections quickly, but gently enough to avoid overloading the airframe and ripping the wings off when the aerodynamic forces ramp up rather quickly in the ~60K range . Having an airframe with a high level of built-in stability would help tremendously. Although I would have to wonder if the autopilot can completely rely on the natural stability alone to right the aircraft and put it into a proper glide (without the risk of dangerous G loading occuring first).

This has to be fairly challenging project. And a very interesting one!

[Crazyrcer]

We break the kevlar line to the balloon with a pyrotechnical device.I would be careful with that setup. I remember reading about this guy (I don't remember what his name was), who sent up a foam cooler full of electronics, cameras and sensors. He had it attached to a weather balloon via a nylon string, I think. He had rigged up a Estes rocket engine to fire, and burn through the string, once it got to 90,000 feet. It ended up not working because there wasn't enough air up there to burn. The weather baloon ended up poping, so he did get it back.

[Tristar500]

I would be careful with that setup. I remember reading about this guy (I don't remember what his name was), who sent up a foam cooler full of electronics, cameras and sensors. He had it attached to a weather balloon via a nylon string, I think. He had rigged up a Estes rocket engine to fire, and burn through the string, once it got to 90,000 feet. It ended up not working because there wasn't enough air up there to burn. The weather baloon ended up poping, so he did get it back.

The Estes rocket will burn in a complete vacuum however it's mighty hard to get it lit at 50 below zero. Not only is the rocket motor cold the batteries used to fire the ingniter may be cold as well.

We are keeping out pyrotechnical cut down mechanism deep within the interior where hopefully it's warm and toasty.

Lawrence

[e-sailpilot86]

You sure? I remember watching a rocketry program where they wanted to use compressed air to blow off the nosecone, and not blackpowder, because at just 30000 feet or so, it was more of a sizzle than a flame. Only if you're sure though, and that you have enough oxidizer. I'd figure a mechanical thing is the way to go.. but, good luck! Looks like an awsome project. BTW, are you going to make the glider fly on it's way down, or is it just going to plummit, and fly at the last bit?

[PHaze]

The rocket motor definitely contains all the oxidizer it needs to burn. Think about what happens when the motor fires. A huge volume of exhaust gas is rapidly expelled from the nozzle under high pressure. There's no way air is going to enter the rocket as it burns.

[Crazyrcer]

I found the persons site that I read this on.One weird thing we noticed is that the cutdown mechanism didn’t release the balloon from the package. Further examination yeilded the answer: Estes model rocket engines don’t ignite at 100,000 feet! Our crude yet effective cutdown mechanism was a simple model rocket engine that would ignite and burn through straps worked fine on the ground. The rarified atmosphere apparently didn’t allow whatever reaction needed to take place in order to fire that engine. Funny, as I thought those engines had oxygen in their fuel. I’ll have to do more research on this one.That was copied from this (http://bordelon.net/freespace/) site. It would probably work fine if you had a good oxidizer. Just don't use Estes rocket engines. :p BTW: if you havn't read through his project, you ought to, great stuff!

[PHaze]

Estes rockets use black powder as a fuel. Black powder contains the oxidizer KNO3 in a proportion sufficient to completely burn the fuel (carbon and sulfur) in the black powder.

[AndyKunz]

My guess is the igniter was inadequate. The cold at that altitude renders most electronics barely functional. It must really play havoc with thermo-electric stuff.

Andy

[Tristar500]

My guess is the igniter was inadequate. The cold at that altitude renders most electronics barely functional. It must really play havoc with thermo-electric stuff.

Andy
Yup!, that's the killer, not only do you have to keep your batteries warm to maintain sufficient voltage and current you also have to keep in mind the added energy you need to fire both the igniter, and once the igniter is lit, that is has enough energy to set off the final charge.

There are certainly a lot of solutions here. From the start we felt the most logical choice was to bring the cut-down mechanism in to the belly of the beast where it is warm and loved by it’s electronic digital compadre. I made the final choice as to use a direct or indirect mechanical release mechanism and decided on the direct approach as it doesn’t depend on a complex mechanical mechanism such as a servo to trigger the fall. One carefully encrypted pulse from the on-board computer is all that is needed to put the Space Glider on its way back to earth. I hope I made the right decision. Like the NASA shuttle program, some of this stuff is difficult if not impossible to simulate. Only a real flight will reveal the final truth and ultimate destiny. Out launch date looms, Late fall, 2005 Black Rock Lake NV. More as it happens.

By the way, I want you all to know we never would have gotten this far without the generous help from Hobby Lobby (our primary sponsor) and a lot of encouragement from you folks here on the e-zone boards. Please forgive me if I’m a little slow at answering questions, we are getting close to a major milestone and it takes a while sometimes to digest and report ourt findings.

Our sister UAV project SAPPHIRE will be featured in Fly RC in the next issue.
The Space Glider Project was featured in the August Issue of FlyRC.

[e-sailpilot86]

Potassium Nitrate is an oxidizer?! :eek: Had no idea. Hmm, guess I'll have to take a chemistry class soon... egh. :rolleyes:

[AndyKunz]

Do you guys have to get a clearance from the FAA or NASA or USAF to fly up there so, like the HPR guys do for their rockets?

Andy

[Tristar500]

Do you guys have to get a clearance from the FAA or NASA or USAF to fly up there so, like the HPR guys do for their rockets?

Andy

Andy, It depends on a few things. If you keep the weight down, (less then ten pounds last I remember) you do not need permission from the FAA. You do however have to inform them of your launch beforehand, during and after.

We chose to work more closely with the FAA and will provide them with telemetry if they so desire.

Our launch site is very remote so for the most part it's a non-issue.

Lawrence

[dracul]

Hi,

I'd love to know how you're getting on with your Space Glider, I have also been
inspired by the 'Canadian Boffin' to build a balloon launched glider. I'm in the
very beginning stages, still doing the research really.

I'd love to know what you're using for a flight computer, this is the piece
of equipment I'm finding it the hardest to decide upon.

Anyway, best of luck with your venture, please do post any pictures
you have, it's great to see everyone's differing approaches.

Good luck,
Lee

[Peter Seddon]

How will the airframe perform at -50deg C or whatever the temp is at 100K feet? Is fibreglass ok at the temp, it doesn't go very brittle does it?

Regards Peter

[CanadianBoffin]

Things had slowed down for a while, but reading the above, that's it for my spare time from now till the software is done. There's No Way anybody's beating us to 100k!
:cool:

(err, barring crashes :eek: )

[Tristar500]

How will the airframe perform at -50deg C or whatever the temp is at 100K feet? Is fibreglass ok at the temp, it doesn't go very brittle does it?

Regards Peter We don't expect and problems with the airframe due to cold. It's all carbon fiber. (same stuff Rutan's Space Ship One was constructed off.

Lawrence

[Tristar500]

Things had slowed down for a while, but reading the above, that's it for my spare time from now till the software is done. There's No Way anybody's beating us to 100k!
:cool:

(err, barring crashes :eek: )


The race is On! :D

[dracul]

The next space race is on!

Is there an existing acronym for this type of activity?

High Altitude Balloon Launched Autonomous Glider : HABLAG ?

[LukeZ]

The Boffin steps forth!

Art, it really is great to see you on the forum. We've all been dying to hear about the MK II.

Welcome!!


Luke

[kd7ost]

Is there an existing acronym for this type of activity? HABLAG ?

NSRV is what Jeff Melanson coined it some years back. It sticks in the high altitude, near space, balloon hobby circles and works quite well. Near Space Return Vehicle.

Dan

[Tristar500]

I'm a Canadian too (residing in the US, They call us "Ice Backs")

So now national rivalry here.

Geez, I just hope one of us get there before another major government sponsored ship takes the plunge!

Best to all,

Lawrence

[kd7ost]

Just an FYI for the technology geeks. Two weekends ago the Treasure Valley Near Space Program (TVNSP) launched some tests to 85,000 feet where we performed one of our signature mechanical cutaways. I flew a Garmin geko 201 with the unit pointing down at the ground the whole time. This was antenna positioned straight down as if it were in a glider being hauled up by the tail. I was interested in seeing if the unit would continue to reconcile 3D lock all the way up and down while oriented that way. It worked great. All my lat, lon and altitude posits, (One a minute for 2+ hours) coincided with the other capsules. I never lost 3D lock.

I also tested powering the geko with external LiIon battery cells, (two in series for 7.8 to 8.2 vdc) through a 3.3 volt switching regulator.
http://www.dimensionengineering.com/DE-SW0XX.htm
This was also an unqualified success. We always use LiIon cells due to their ability to handle extreme cold but had never used that regulator before. It was a very efficient means of powering the GPS unit.

Packets were sent via 2 meter APRS with a Pocket Tracker from Bionics. It was powered from the same battery pack but not through the 3.3 volt regulator. (It has it's own regulator and operates off 5vdc)

Pictures of the event can be viewed here. Take a look at this country side. This is where I get to test my UAV flights. Sweet.

http://www.tvnsp.org/modules.php?set_albumName=TV05A&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

Dan

[Tristar500]

I also tested powering the geko with external LiIon battery cells, (two in series for 7.8 to 8.2 vdc) through a 3.3 volt switching regulator.

Dan
Congratulations Dan!

Really a great flight. It's nice when everything works the way you planned. :D

I looked through the photo gallery, You really have one sweet launch site! We had planned on Black Rock but having an alternate might be a good idea. Is it private or government land?

Good to hear you had better luck with the Dimension Engineering switching power supply. We purchased one of their adjustable units and after carefully calibrating it to 3 volts thought it was going to save us some weight and complexity. All worked well during the next few days of instrument testing but on the day we had planned for flight testing I found the GPS would not power up. After scraping the days flight tests and diagnosing the problem we were surprised to find the regulator was putting out over 10 volts. Needless to say the GPS was toast. Fortunately the GPS was the only system powered with the thing. :eek:

I brought the failure of the unit to Dimension Engineering’s attention and sent it back to them. They refunded my money for the regulator and offered a string of excuses for the failure. They went so far as to suggest I return the GPS to Garmin as defective. Long story short, it cost us a GPS and we don't use or recommend their products. :(

I'm running some tests and will report the findings on a linear regulator. They don't have a really high efficiency if they need to convert voltage over a wide range but if the voltage differential is kept to a minimum its very reliable. The small amount of wasted energy is dissipated as heat through the body of the chip. Its cheap, extremely reliable, can be put in series or parallel and the small amount of wasted heat serves to keep the battery from freezing. Although we didn’t find any immediate problems with RF interference from the switching regulator they can we quite noisy. Linear regs make no RF noise so as long as the efficiency is within acceptable parameters it seems like the way to go. :D


Lawrence
Space Glider Project

[kd7ost]

Ouch,

I may have gotten lucky then or you had bad luck. It sucks when you lose a GPS. We've (The TVNSP) been flying for a couple of years and have always flown fixed regulators with never a problem. I wanted to test this unit out but it is a risk due to high parts count. I better hold off swapping out the fixed regulator in my UAV with it then. Thanks for passing that info along.

Did you look in the Gallery for members projects? Under Dan's Projects I have a project called Icarus, Aurora Capsule. Last year I dropped that capsule off my buddy’s capsule at 95,000 feet or so. I let it free fall. Down at 20,000’ MSL the GPS altitude information read by a Basic Stamp operated a servo that let the tail assembly fly off and deploy the chute for a normal landing. The pictures from that flight are here. That capsule is 3.4 pounds. I have some construction photos in the Members projects section.

Look here under Aurora capsule for construction pictures
http://www.tvnsp.org/modules.php?set_albumName=Dans_Capsule&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

Look here for launch and recovery pictures
http://www.tvnsp.org/modules.php?set_albumName=TV04B&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_album.php

We plan to re-fly that flight here in the next month or so with a couple of modifications. My buddy Jeff has a capsule where a servo tilts a digital Camera then takes pictures. It does this based on programming of a Basic Stamp and via DTMF commands. That flight I described was the first flight that camera went on and it suffered catastrophic mechanical failure. We were going to take pictures of my capsule falling away from 90K+ feet. Not only did the camera fail, but the load line I was attached to wrapped around the Parachute lines of Jeff’s capsule when he began his descent at close to 98,000 feet. It caused him to burn in pretty fast and suffered some impact damage on landing. The pictures show some of that.

His capsule has been repaired and he has a new Camera mounted with standard instead of micro servos. The capsule was just flown and the new camera was tested on this last flight where I tested the less than optimal GPS mounting position. This next time when we rig, I'll keep my load line under his capsule down to 3 feet length. No tangling. Also, I changed a bit of programming in mine. It will still drop the same way and the code will deploy the chute if the capsule gets down to 15,000 feet MSL. (That’s about 10K AGL in our big LZ and it takes about 2000 feet from deployment altitude reached until the capsule is under canopy) Double checking program plus the time it takes to operate the deployment system. But, I'll also have the option of punching out the chute via DTMF commands during the descent. I'm hoping to pick a landing site down range during the flight and trying to time the chute deployment to see how close I can get to that. We have excellent prediction processes as well as great data on our chutes and actual descent rates.

I've not been talking about this as I don't want to hijack your thread and am anxiously awaiting your flight. I have similar plans as you two guys but am not close to having the glider ready even though I'm testing hardware and concepts that lead to it.

That land is Public Land managed by the BLM. It goes on for many many, miles out here just like that and even has some remote landing strips in it. (Dirt) When I do build my NSRV glider, my plan is to have it track to one of those strips, then I’ll take over manual flight for a controlled landing via RC. It will be lighter to do that than to put in a chute and deployment system. Well, that’s the plan anyways.

Dan

[Xnaron]

Any updates on this project?

[Frisk151]

Bummer... I've come across a number of projects relating to things such as these and they seem to just go poof and no final results.

[small_rcer]

go to
www.tvnsp.org

and you can find flight archives. Some pics of the Aug flight. Because their web site has changed considerably the links are now broken. Most of the info appears to be there, just not where it was.

HTH

Jim H