Hello all; My name is Tyrell, I was at an intro meeting a few months back... But then my work schedule changed, and I haven't been able to get out since. I did spend a few months taking the Intro to Python course on Coursera, though, so I haven't been COMPLETELY idle... Hopefully when my schedule cleans up a bit, I'll actually be able to help with something!
But at the meeting I did attend, it was suggested that my backgrounds in GIS and Ham Radio might make me useful to the recovery team... I am very interested in that, and would like some pointers in what has worked in the past, and what ideas people had for improving it. Just as a method of getting discussion off the ground: It's fairly trivial to map the entire flight in 4 dimensions using all sorts of GIS type software products, and a script can be written to model the remainder of the flight after the last report using data from the last known trajectory, and possibly also data from recent National Weather Service sounding balloons (Although I suspect doing so is overkill). All I would need are the timestamped position reports, and trajectory vector data if it's available from the rocket (Of course I can calculate the trajectory based on any given two points, but I imagine that the rocket's instruments may have a better idea about what's going on than just the current position). At any rate, I would guess that such methods would narrow the search down to a few hundred yards, potentially close enough to be able to "Hear" the position beacon again (This, of course, assumes that the rocket is still transmitting, even at a less frequent rate, which I understand it does NOT currently do). There's also the Automatic Position Reporting Service, http://aprs.org/, which uses amateur radio to report a station's location (And potentially other data). APRS is common in high altitude balloons, but the hardware is redundant and unnecessary in this application. It COULD, however, be used to track the recovery team member's current locations, and if they are geographicly dispersed, they could report over the radio the bearing of the rocket at the last moment they saw it, and we could triangulate based on that bearing and their APRS reported position... I doubt this will be as accurate than the GIS models, but I'm a HUGE fan of redundancy against hardware failure ;) Additionally, because APRS "iGates" report heard APRS stations to http://aprs.fi, the recovery can be tracked and reported to the internet automatically, and analyzed after the fact to improve future recoveries. These are thoughts I had based on virtually no experience or knowledge of this project... I just wanted to introduce myself to the group, and identify my goals, so discussion and planning can happen well in advance of any upcoming flights ;) I may be completely off base, and if I am, please feel free to correct me! More than anything, I'm just interested in learning and participating within the realm of my limited physics and engineering knowledge ;) Thank you, Tyrell Jentink, KD7KUJ
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