Lightning from the Edge of Space

Goals

Ready to leave your Georgia Tech legacy at the edge of space? We build electronics and software for a high altitude (100,000 ft) balloon platform, which we then launch and recover. We bring together the engineering of circuits, power systems, radio communications, software, and mechanical structure with physics and data analysis. We are motivated by sensing of lightning and related atmospheric electrical phenomena, and aim to launch these balloons over thunderstorms.
 

We have launched and retrieved many balloons over the years, including one over the top of the 2017 solar eclipse. We tend to launch every per semester, and in between those launches, we have some seriously fun engineering to do, much of it a team effort. We want a platform that is light, cheap, controllable and trackable from the ground with wireless communications. We want increasingly complex instruments and sensors on board. We want hardened launch logistics that will enable us to launch in thunderstorm conditions, at nighttime, or even on demand.
 

We typically have 3-4 subteams covering mechanical, electrical, software, and scientific technical tasks. Learn more about the work we’re doing at our Wiki: https://osf.io/8cmav/wiki/home/
 

Issues Involved or Addressed

Software, circuits, and mechanical design for a robust, low-cost and low-power platform. Detection of electromagnetic fields from lightning. X-ray emissions from thunderstorms. Monitoring of electrical charging of thunderstorms. Prediction of thunderstorm cessation, and onset of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. Lightning releases x-rays and gamma-rays, a poorly understood phenomena that might endanger flight crews, and also releases energy that affects the radiation in the space environment, that has implications for satellite protection. Detection of upper atmospheric discharges related to lightning.