Earth seen from ALIEN-1 at a height of 30km

ALIEN-1 balloon success

The flight of ALIEN-1, built by three pupils at Reading School, proved a success.

The 434.075 MHz beacon worked well and some great pictures were taken.

The hard work of the pupils certainly paid off with the payload proving to be reliable. Over 3000 pictures were taken during the flight and they now face the task of organising all those pictures.

Due to the 434.075 MHz telemetry messages being sent at just 50 baud the payload could only send down one telemetry string every 15 seconds. As a result it initially looked as though the highest altitude achieved was 33.116km. However, having recovered the payload they got the second-by-second GPS log and this shows the highest achieved altitude was 33.158km: It is believed this altitude is the third highest in the UKHAS UK records.

ALIEN-1 Pictures on Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alienhab/

ALIEN – ALtitude Imaging Entering Near-space
http://alienproject.wordpress.com/

ALIEN-1 Launch Announcement
http://www.southgatearc.org/news/may2010/
alien_1_launch.htm