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Senior Engineering Project - Epic footage from the edge of space.

Z

Zach Swena

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Hi,

I am currently a Junior Mechanical Engineering student considering various senior projects. One option is to design a helium lifting body airship that could hoist Epic to an altitude of around 100,000 ft to collect footage and return it to the takeoff zone in an extremely safe and reliable manner. I have several questions though.

1. How much would some of you pay to shoot footage on such a craft?
2. I need to define desirable constraints such as:
required camera comforts
preferable descent profile
Camera kit overall mass.

Shots would be framed using a live camera feed and pan, tilt, and camera controls. The client would own the footage and pay for my team to fly the aircraft. Parachutes will be on board, but not required by design. The return to ground would be performed either as an airship or glider. I am not aware of any cinema or video production specific capability like this in the market currently so I am not sure what to expect.

Let me know what you guys think. You can respond by posting or PM.

I am looking for either enough clients to fund the development, or a sponsor.

Zach
 
You'll be sending up an EPIC... The craft will weigh more than 3lbs... That means if you're anywhere in North America, you will have to file a flight plan for your aircraft. Presumably similar requirements exist elsewhere.

I wouldn't pay a dime to have my EPIC shoot footage on such a craft. But you're welcome to rent it, pay a damage deposit and provide me with verifiable ID's and verifiable proof of insurance coverage.

This is something that everyone and their dog is doing these days... Sending cameras up to the edge of space. My daughter's third-grade class will be doing it in january. So that leads me to other points about your project that you mention. The ability to pan/frame shots, control the camera. If you can stabilize the rig enough to pull that off and maintain control of the camera, then you have a project worthy of a senior-level engineering major (actually much better than that). If it's just another weather balloon with a camera and GPS tracker strapped to it, then see my note above about the third-grade.

So, now I've got to ask... How will you stabilize your camera platform? How will you maintain a wireless video feed and camera control when that rig is 18 miles away (up in the air)? How do you intend to safely recover the camera?

I have some friends who flew a DSLR rig this way. No way to view or control the camera while it was up there on that rig, but they came up with a way to stabilize. Their rig shot stills. Came back with some very impressive shots and their recovery system failed, the camera was a total loss, but the CF card(s?) were salvageable.
 
Jeff pretty much said everything I would have said. Getting the camera up there is the easy part. Making it condusive of a professional worthy shot, well, that's a whole different matter. Where are you located?
 
Hi, thanks for the skepticism, this is exactly what I need in this stage of development. Jason, I am attending Walla Walla University in College Place, WA.

I am aware of the need for a flight plan and will need to locate any other applicable regulations. My plan is to use a 3 axis gyro/accelerometer stabilized camera pod to stabilize the camera. Monitoring will be done with a HD-SDI over IP encoder with mild compression. Data will be transmitted over a wifi link using radios and antennas common to the wireless ISP business.

I have a friend who runs a wireless ISP in Canada who can get online from 15 miles away from a midsized antenna on his ipod touch. At least one computer controlled ground based antenna will track the airship to maintain the link.

Many people have done weather balloons that burst at altitude and recover on parachutes. This is too risky of a flight profile for expensive cameras. I am not interested in making a very expensive lawn dart! I am thinking more of an airship that will not burst and have neutral buoyancy at around 100,000 ft. Descent would simply involve lowering buoyancy slowly and returning to the landing zone under electric power and possibly a lifting body.

Jeff, I am sorry to hear about your friend's DSLR accident. Did he test it first at altitude? It seems fairly DIY to not to test fly without expensive components on board before risking gear. I will test fly several times with a cheap webcam before flying an epic, because a crash would be an epic failure.

How would you define the physical requirements to achieve a "professionally worthy shot"?

Is there any way to easily extend the range of the Redmote over a wifi adapter that would allow camera control over the ethernet control link?

Any other problems I should think of?
 
It looks like it will be pretty heavy then. It will have to be flown at Black Rock Nevada since it is the closest area where you can get a 100,000 ft waiver from the FAA. You will not be able to fly it in Washington at all because you will not be able to get a FAA waiver for that altitude. Keeping all the electronics warm will be a major issue. What will be your fail safe system? Good luck with your project.
 
I did two wheatherballoon flights with small equipment and amateur radio on board (crossband transponder, ATV downlink and APRS Beacon). Similar to this android project: http://android.hibal.org/ or this one: http://p56.de/ballonprojekt/

Maximum Altitude was 102.000 ft. The Temperature outside of the payload was at this height -45 degree celsius. The air pressure goes down to a minimum (about 200 hPa).
Don't forget Jetstreams... this winds can have up to 250 km/h... you will need a radar transponder as well if it is no balloon I think... on the balloons we had only passive radar reflectors.
Heating inside needs to be controlled if you want to do that, because of condensation. Our camera saw only a gray glass for some minutes because the temperature in the payload was too high.
Try it with a small cheap camera first m8...
 
Zach,

Sounds like you have put some good thought into it at least. My friends' DSLR attempt was made after two successful test flights. The recovery on the actual flight failed. Shit happens. Hehe. They did use a parachute system and flew two successful test flights with a flip camera and added weight to mimic the DSLR body+lens. Their ariship used a combination of gyroscope system and airfoils / fins to stabilize. It wasn't just a balloon carrying a basket. They think the failure on the actual flight had more to do with excessively turbulent air conditions at altitude. It was recovered at a rather large distance from the initial launch site and they faced some questioning and were almost arrested, and still fined, when retrieving it from local police who picked it up -- after witnesses called it in. It almost crashed into some parked cars.

Temperature was an issue as Rainer points out. The DSLR on my friends rig was cooled in advance of the launch and wrapped / insulated for the flight.

That's pretty much all I know. I've seen some of the images they got from the flight and some of them are stunning.

For my daughter's third-grade class deal, we're going to use 2, maybe 3, GoPro cameras. We think we can avoid most of the cold and condensation problems by freezing the cameras in advance, except the batteries, and launching on a cold, clear day. Jet stream and other atmospheric currents should be out of the way or at a minimum.
 
Having done a quick read of FAR101, it seems there may be a solution for the weight issue. Payload weight is a major limiting factor with the regulations. This can be taken care of by including helium cavities in the payload assembly that will not pop under flight conditions to mitigate the weight of the camera and equipment. This way I can set the payload weight right at 3 lb. Keep in mind that weight in lb is a measure of force. Thankfully they do not seem to regulate payload mass in the US. Am I wrong with this assessment?

Temperature is an issue I will have to deal with, although many electronics can work fine at fairly cold temperatures, see Jared’s frozen scarlet pic. The bigger issue, like you say, is condensation which is more of a function of humidity and temperature difference. Freezing in advance and picking the day carefully, like you say Jeff, will probably be part of the solution.

The risk in parachute recovery unfortunately is impossible to mitigate with test flights unless special packing procedures are rigidly adhered to like they are for sky diving and spacecraft return. I know this very well from the many flying model rockets with their “nut men” , and Lego payloads I have flown as a kid growing up. Amateurly folded parachutes have a fairly low reliability rate.

A radar transponder would be a very good thing to have. If one is not required legally then I might opt for a transponder that transmits GPS position data to my data link antennas for backup. Jet streams will probably be an issue with return to launch site. Once I have the design hammered out more I will see if I can get the drag coefficient down low enough to counter with propeller thrust. I think I may have to settle for a pre defined secondary landing site adjusted for prevailing wind conditions.
 
There was a great podcast by my friend Mike Seymour on RedCentre about 13 months ago where he interviewed a guy hired to deal with all the digital cameras on a high altitude balloon capsule with a man jumping out to break the high altitude jump record. It was fascinating what they were going to have to do to the RED One and all the other cameras to keep them operating in the space environment. Housings with helium cooling, etc. Also the addition of some DSLR bodies as well as some GoPro and/or Contour cameras on the man's spacesuit.

Try to find it and it will answer so many questions. Good luck.

BTW the mission was scalped because of a pending lawsuit I believe.
 
Wow, that's a pretty aggressive flight profile. It will be interesting to watch. Nitrogen cooling on the R1 bodies. It does seem like a pressurized enclosure is the safest for the cameras.

Here is a question. Are there people that would pay for high altitude landscape type footage or would this end up as just bragging rights?

I do have other payloads that I could design for such as communications that could bring paying customers also. The design constraints are not much different except I would have to figure out how to combat weather a bit more.
 
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