// HACKER NEWS — CYBERSECURITY
Show HN: We chased a weather balloon across Montana and never found it
In June of 2025, I worked with New England Sci-Tech as a part of
Apex to launch StratoSpore:
my first ballooning project. I used this opportunity to use algae as a biosensor
for altitude, and I learned a lot in the process. Wanting to experiment in the
stratosphere again, I worked with Sam Flynn to make a
reliable and flight-ready payload.
I had a few goals with this payload from what I learned from last year:
My plan for this post is to cover how I implemented these changes, along with
documenting my learning process in hopes to inform my future launches.
StratoSpore last year had two goals: examine how altitude/UV exposure affects
algae fluorescence, and send images to the ground over a radio link.
UpLink, our payload this year, follows a similar style and did two things:
Historically, most high-altitude research teams use styrofoam boxes
for payload enclosures. There is a reason most teams avoid experimenting with other
types of enclosures: styrofoam provides excellent thermal insulation and is easy
to manipulate.
Despite their popularity, they have a few disadvantages:
The entire payload (parachute, flight line, electronics, enclosures) we sent up
weighed 491 grams.
A traditional foam enclosure would already weigh ~200 grams. Ultralight
payloads are more attractive the lighter your balloon is. Ours was a 350 gram balloon
from Kaymont. As a general rule, the bigger the balloon, the more helium you will
need. Costs of it add up quickly!
Sam designed our enclosure in Fusion360 over a few weeks, creating something that
fit our payload perfectly, had predefined standoffs, standardized mounting hardware,
and pockets for fitting cameras, temperature sensors, and other electronics.
For measuring how the different filaments insulate the temperature sensors,
small capsules were attached to the payload’s lid. Internally, the sensors were
sealed with hot glue to isolate them from ambient air that would impact similarity
between the pods.