Five friends in Arizona planned to send a GoPro, a
camcorder, and a phone up in a weather balloon to record some footage of space.
Bryan Chan, Ved Chirayath, Ashish Goel, Paul Tarantino, and Tyler Reid, all
college students, built their gadget, calculated its trajectory, registered
with the FAA to avoid interfering with passing planes, and then launched the
balloon in the desert a few miles outside of Tuba City.
They intended to use GPS on the attached smartphone to
track the balloon’s movement, but as the device floated out of the cell phone
tower range, they lost communication with the locator.
The group had been wondering for months if they
would ever get their balloon and cameras back. In actuality, they would have to
wait two years to realize the benefits of their project. They got a call from
an unknown number after 2 years, saying that a hiker in Arizona had discovered
a bizarre box with their names on it 50 miles from their original launch place.
When the team was reunited with their gear, they
were able to witness the incredible video and photographs that the cameras had
produced–including a stunning “money shot” of the Grand Canyon captured from
the stratosphere (above).
The group of friends also had the opportunity to
analyse the data from their equipment, discovering that the balloon had reached
a height of 98,664 feet and had flown for 1 hour and 38 minutes.
You can watch the recorded video below.