I’ve recently been experimenting with weight reduction. Having built and launched two payloads, whose flights ended very early, I have been able to learn more about how much weight can be removed before the payload becomes too flimsy to handle the conditions of flight.
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After Kaizen 2 splashed down in the Mediterranean Sea, I began building my next picoHAB payload, ‘Bouken’. During Kaizen’s flight, I had spoken to a number of friends about the issues she suffered and we came to the conclusion that there must be an issue with radio frequency interference.
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A wise man once told me that the true definition of insanity is someone doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. With this in mind I set out to change a few parameters, one of which was the weight of the payload, which meant I needed to design my own tracker board.
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After the success of Tabi and the failure of my second attempt Kido, I spent a few days preparing a new payload for another shot at flying around the world. This would also give me an opportunity to test my newly developed launch checklist. I decided to retain the name and call this payload Kido 2.
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After my first floating payload “Tabi” successfully travelled approximately 14,500 miles, I decided to give it another go. Tabi weighed in at around 11g, which is like a brick in comparison with most payloads that people float.
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Building a working picoHAB payload is one challenge. Getting that payload prepped for it’s flight around the world is a completely new challenge!
With a fleet of pico trackers built and a few weeks of sunshine forecast it was time for me to get a tracker flight ready. So I picked a tracker off the shelf and began testing it to make sure it was calibrated and to make sure there were no apparent faults with it.
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