Cooperative Student-Built Multi-Payload Balloon-Satellite Eclipse Measurement

Six high altitude balloon payloads were built and flown in the path of totality on during the 2017 total solar eclipse across the US. The payload flight controllers consisted of Raspberry Pi computers running code written in Bash and Python 3.4 to collect and store data from sensors. The program on each payload collected data from an external temperature sensor, an internal temperature sensor, a pressure sensor, a light sensor, a GPS unit, and a camera. The design also incorporated a smart internal heater to prevent the payload from freezing. The payload design, circuit, and code will be presented along with lessons learned and plans for future work. This project was made possible by a Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship, a subaward from the NASA Eclipse Ballooning Project Science Mission Directorate Grant & the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium Grant, and Student Research Funds from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Central Arkansas