GoPro cameras are at times attached to small balloons by people and launched into space. At times, it happens that the cameras do not return to their owners. A similar incident took place with Bryan Chan and a group of students, who launched a GoPro camera in June 2013, but luckily for them, someone found their camera years later.
GoPro camera survived the fall
In June 2013, Bryan Chan and a group of friends decided to launch a GoPro, Sony Camcorder and Samsung Galaxy Note 2 for which they created a 3D printed case of their own. For monitoring the position of the balloon, they planned to make use of a GPS monitor, making it easy for them to retrieve the camera when it aell to earth. On the crash landing of the box, the phone should have sent a text with a location, but it could not do so due to a coverage map issue.
Years later, it was found by someone who identified Bryan and his team from the SIM card and contacted them to return it. The video that the GoPro cam took, when it goes from the Earth to near-space and then returns, is really amazing. The camera captured footage of the Grand Canyon from 98,000 ft above. The amazing part is that these GoPro and Sony cameras were able to survive the fall from over 30 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.
Amazing images captured
Bryan shared the resulting footage with the world. In a post on Reddit, Bryan said, “We used GPS on a smartphone to continuously log the phone’s location on its memory card. The standard GPS receiver these days can track your phone well above 100,000ft.” He further said that the phone was projected to land in an area with cell coverage for which they were relying on the coverage map of AT&T, but it was not very accurate. The phone did not receive any signals on coming back to Earth, and therefore, they never heard anything from it.
The GoPro camera captured breath-taking views over the Grand Canyon and across the plains of Arizona. The moment when the weather balloon reached the maximum altitude and burst was also been captured in the footage. The balloon remained where it crashed in Arizona for more than two years, and was then found by a hiker who happened to work for AT&T.
