Near-Space Balloon Missions The Bay School of San Francisco Bay
students have now successfully launched and recovered three
near-space balloon payloads, sailing into the stratosphere and
returning atmostpheric data, photos, and video. Pre-launch
preparations and launch-day updates can be found on our
livestream page. Our first mission in May of 2010 proved that we
could successfully launch and recover video and data from the
upper atmosphere. Refining our first design, Ikaros II tested
new components and a multi-package arrangement. With a new,
lighter, more stable payload, including electronics we
constructed ourselves, Ikaros III tweeted its way to 96,000 feet
on April 11, 2012. The flight of Ikaros IV, configured with
better cameras, data-logging capability, and a bacteria
collection device, was completed on April 11, 2013.