Spacebridge: The Next Generation

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the hackerspace Noisebridge, our ongoing mission to explore strange (yet economically priced) new ascent technologies; to seek out new parts and new partnerships; to boldly go where no non-government-or-massively-industrially-funded-group has gone before. Discussions: Discord Project Thread - To be included in Spacebridge-related announcements go to #bot-commands and type /rank Spacing Guild. Weekly meetup notes EVENTS: We have weekly meetings Sunday at 5pm-7/8ish. (Meetup page) Spacebridge interest list Launch and field trip announcements will be made during the weekly meeting as well as the #announcement channel on discord.

On-boarding Materials

• Meetup Page
• Discord Project Channel
  • To subscribe to discord announcements type `/rank Spacing Guild`
• Meeting Notes
• Github
• Wiki (this page)
• Previous missions/excursions: See Missions for photos / write-ups!

Missions

Mission ID	Codename	Mission Patch	Launch	Landing	Description	Documentation
NBRL-000	First Foray Finding Floating Forms	N/A	OAK 2024-04-21	Tracy, CA 2024-04-21	Our first attempt to track down a Radiosonde weather balloon. Check out the balloon's full journey over on SondeHub as we forgot to disable GPS reporting after we recovered it. 😅	Photos
NBRL-001	Infinite Improbability Drive: The Whale and the Petunia		Field of Dogs McLaren Park, San Francisco, CA 2024-06-16 2:30pm	Tracy,CA 2024-06-16 ~6pm	Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of Tracy, California.	Photos Writeup
LUNAR-000	A Case Study on the Importance of Rocket Stability and Safe Range Operation	N/A	Hollister, CA 2024-06-22	Hollister, CA 2024-06-22	We were graciously invited to take part in LUNAR's monthly rocket launch by a pair of most excellent hackers over at Double Union (thanks Emma/Cynthia!!). Not only did they clue us into this awesome event they also provided easy to build rockets for us to launch! The day took a dramatic turn when a kid's rocket took a nosedive and started a (small) brush fire. Fortunately the fire department responded before it could escalate into a more serious issue. tl;dr: 🚀🌱🔥🔥🔥😨🚒🚒🚒😅	Photos
NBRL-002	TDB	TDB	TDB	TDB	TDB	TDB

NBRL-001: Infinite Improbability Drive

Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of Tracy, California.

NBRL-001 Mission Patch

Date and Time:

2024-06-16 2:30 pm

Vehicle Type:

Unmanned Free Balloon

Launch Location:

McLaren Park, San Francisco, CA

37°43'10.7"N 122°25'10.6"W

Landing Location:

Tracy, CA (Estimated)

37°40'44.0"N 121°27'33.2"W

Objectives:

Pre-launch:

• 🟩Track and recover NWS radiosonde using SDR ground station
• 🟩Repurpose RS41 radiosonde to transmit telemetry on amateur radio band via APRS
• 🟩Identify appropriate launch location
• 🟩Plan safe and recoverable flight trajectory
• 🟩Communicate with FAA to issue NOTAM

Launch:

• 🟩Assemble and integrate payload and balloon subsystems
• 🟩Safely fill and handle balloon
• 🟩Launch!

Post-launch:

• 🟨 Take time-lapse photos with iPod touch
• 🟩 Receive radio signal from radiosonde
• 🟨/🟥 Track balloon position using telemetry data
• 🟨 Recover payload

Predicted flight path and landing locations. The black line indicates the expected flight path for a release at 10:00 AM. The colored dots indicate expected landing locations assuming a release at 10:00 AM and advancing hourly (11:00 AM launch, 12:00 PM etc.)