As the first major flight milestone for the LEONIRD program, the team completed a high-altitude balloon (HAB) campaign to validate critical flight hardware, software, and mission operations in a near-space environment. Designed, integrated, and launched within approximately one month, the flight served as a rapid technology demonstration and risk-reduction effort ahead of future CubeSat missions.
The balloon reached an altitude of nearly 100,000 ft (30 km) and carried a payload consisting of environmental sensors, telemetry systems, onboard cameras, and a prototype compact spectrometer. The primary objectives of the mission were to validate avionics integration, flight software, telemetry, tracking, payload recovery, and end-to-end mission operations while collecting engineering and environmental data.
Despite several pre-launch challenges, including a helium shortage, structural modifications, and late-stage electrical issues, the team successfully adapted and completed the launch. Following a recovery effort that not only spanned multiple states across New England but also brought several hours of lost hope, the payload was successfully located and recovered, enabling post-flight analysis of both the collected data and the hardware performance.
Flight Systems
The payload was centered around the ARGUS avionics board, which integrated an RP2350 processor, LoRa radio, GPS receiver, IMU, and I²C interfaces. The ARGUS board is our primary flight computer and processing board from a partner laboratory, REx Lab, that our team assembled ourselves. The flight computer collected sensor measurements and transmitted telemetry to a distributed network of ground receivers ("Beacons") positioned both at MIT and on the recovery vehicle, providing redundancy for vehicle tracking and communications throughout the mission.
The payload also included:
- Environmental temperature sensors
- High-precision pressure sensor
- Prototype compact spectrometer
- Onboard imaging system
- A very important AirTag
Outcomes
The HAB campaign successfully demonstrated:
- Flight computer integration and operation
- End-to-end telemetry and communications
- Ground station and tracking architecture
- Payload recovery procedures
- Flight software and mission operations workflow
- Integration of prototype scientific instrumentation
The recovered flight data and hardware are being used to evaluate system performance, refine subsystem designs, and improve future flight procedures.
Next Steps
Lessons learned from the HAB campaign directly informed the design of LEONIRD I, the team's 1U technology demonstration satellite. Current post-flight activities include:
- Analyzing flight and telemetry data
- Characterizing and iterating on the prototype spectrometer
- Refining structural and avionics designs
- Expanding mission documentation and operational procedures
The HAB campaign served as a critical risk-reduction milestone, validating the core technologies and operational concepts that will be carried forward into LEONIRD I and, ultimately, the planned 6U atmospheric science mission.