NASA ASCEND
We design and fly near-space high-altitude payloads to the edge of the stratosphere — 100,000+ ft, where ambient drops to -60°C and pressure falls below 1% of sea level. Carbon-fiber airframe, full sensor suite, recoverable, and reduced through a real T-MATS → MATLAB → Unity engineering pipeline.
Mission Profile
Ground checkout, telemetry handshake, balloon fill, release. Avionics bay sealed and armed.
Troposphere transit at ~1,000 ft/min. IMU + GPS lock, sensor cadence stepped up through the jet stream.
Near-space window: -60°C ambient, <1% sea-level pressure. Full science capture — imagery, atmospheric profile, attitude.
Balloon burst at design ceiling. Freefall transient logged at full IMU rate for descent reconstruction.
Parachute descent, GPS beacon downlink, terminal track, field recovery. Flash data pulled for T-MATS reduction.
Payload Subsystems
Twill-weave CF airframe with honeycomb-vented avionics bay and latched access. Optics dome in optical-grade polycarbonate. Survives burst shock + hard landing.
Sealed camera module in pressure-isolated dome. Continuous capture from surface through stratospheric apogee for curvature + limb imagery.
Position, altitude, and health beaconed continuously. Recovery-grade tracking survives loss-of-signal through descent into recovery zone.
9-DOF inertial, barometric altimetry, and multi-zone thermal logging. Cadence steps up at altitude bands for high-resolution atmospheric profile.
Passive insulation + component placement tuned for the stratospheric cold-soak. Internal/external delta logged the full flight.
Lithium chemistry selected for low-temperature discharge. Budgeted for full ascent, dwell, descent, and post-landing beacon margin.
Flight Data → Engineering Readout
- 01Flash + downlink telemetry recovered post-flight and time-aligned against GPS truth.
- 02T-MATS / MATLAB reduction: altitude profile, ascent rate, thermal delta, attitude reconstruction.
- 03Unity 3D playback rebuilds the mission — payload motion, burst transient, descent track.
- 04Symposium readout: engineering findings, anomaly review, next-revision payload changes.