Ptimulus

Ptimulus: the project

The Ptimulus project is born in december 2013. Our goal was to use our free time for running a personal project that would be fun, interesting, new and that would give us the opportunity to work on something different than our daily jobs as software developers. We quickly took the decision that our project would consist of launching a souding balloon to thirty kilometers above sea level and to retrieve it after the flight. We also decided to make different measures during the flight and to take aerial pictures on which one would be able to see the curvature of the earth. Finally, we took a particular care of following the french aerial legislation and obtaining all necessary authorizations.

The balloon

The balloon is a latex balloon inflated with helium that carry a flight chain made of several elements: a parachute, a radar reflector and a capsule containing two Android phones. The phones were programmed for taking pictures at a regular interval, saving the data measured by their sensors (position, altitude, acceleration and magnetic field) and sending text messages containing their exact position, provided that a GSM signal is available. The steps of the flight were simple: the balloon gains altitude until it explodes, then the flight chain falls while being slowed down by the parachute. Our aim was an altitude of 30.000m and the flight was intended to last 2h30.

The team

We are four computer science engineers from Strasbourg and Lyon (France). We first met during our studies and always kept contact since then in order to work on projects of this kind and also, sometimes, share a beer or two.