4 March Schönfelde Launch – Thermal Imaging

4 March 2017 Schönfelde Launch: 51 Pegasi b, Schellin, and an Explorer Trio

Arriving in Schönfelde, a field in Brandenburg, Germany, just after sunrise, members of the Aerocene team met Radioamateurs Sven Steudte and Thomas Krahn, and quickly began setting up for our launch. Spirits were high – we brought five Aerocene solar sculptures to the site, hopeful that the weather conditions would allow for a series of successful launches.

The best time for launching sculptures is early in the morning, because at this time, wind speeds and outside temperatures are relatively low, both important factors in achieving a powerful lift.  Each Aerocene sculpture floats without burning fossil fuels, without batteries, and without helium, hydrogen or other rare gases. Their thermodynamic rise utilises only the power of the Sun, air, and wind currents. 

A trio of Aerocene Explorer sculptures was the first to be launched. Two of us held the Explorer open and started to run, sealing it quickly after it filled with collected air.

We repeated the process twice more, until three Explorers were filled and ready. Even though it was pretty overcast, the Sun broke through the clouds intermittently. The sculptures rested and became gradually heated by sunlight, until the temperature inside them rose higher than the surrounding air outside.

Once the Explorers sufficiently heated, they began to float. The temperature differential becomes acutely visible with the aid of an infrared camera, which detects the amount of heat emitting from people or objects.

Soon all three Explorers were in the air. Remaining afloat throughout the launch, the tethered family of sculptures danced through the air, their movements choreographed by the push and pull of the winds. 

The 51 Pegasi b, a new large lightweight (9 g/sq. m) sculpture, began to inflate. As we planned to launch it without a tether, we had already secured flight permission and alerted aviation authorities to the flight.

In the days leading up to the launch, many people had tried to estimate where the Pegasi might land by checking weather forecasts and using the Float Predictor, a global forecasting system that utilises open meteorological data to predict the flight paths of Aerocene solar flying sculptures. 

An online challenge was issued to try and predict the landing point of the Pegasi on this map. 

After the Pegasi inflated, we attached its payload.

The payload comprised the following sensing devices: a Pican Pica tracker, SPOT satellite GPS tracker, a GoPro camera, APRS byonics, and a radar reflector. Thanks to Sven Steudte (Radioamateur) for providing his Pican Pica for this launch.

The Pegasi warmed in the Sun, and we prepared for lift off.
After running with the Pegasi, it soon began to rise. It was released into the sky, rapidly lifting and floating with the wind, away from sight.

The Pegasi’s float trajectory was tracked on the APRS website.

Wilhelm-Hack-Museum (Ludwigshafen, Germany) and Museum Haus Konstructiv (Zurich, Switzerland) were following along live as well, having supported this launch as a part of Tomás Saraceno’s solo exhibition Aerosolar Journeys, which we cordially invite you to visit.

The Pican Pica camera began to transmit some fascinating aerial photos from onboard the Pegasi.

Meanwhile, back on Earth... As the weather conditions were still favourable, we prepared our final sculpture for launch. This sculpture, the Schellin, was outfitted with a cut-down mechanism, in order to test our geo-fencing system.

Geo-fencing creates an invisible perimeter beyond reach an Aerocene sculpture can not cross. When the geo-fence is triggered, a cut-down mechanism will be activated, which will force the sculpture to descend. This is a way of making sure an Aerocene does not float over areas where recovery would be problematic, i.e. over the ocean. Thanks to Alexander Bouchner from TU-Braunschweig for developing a cut-down mechanism for this experiment.

Due to the position of the sculpture and wind speeds, the Schellin did not launch on the first attempt, but we were determined to try again. 

Finally, the Schellin lifted skyward, joining the other Aerocene sculptures in the ocean of air above us. Everyone was thrilled to be able to launch five Aerocene sculptures in a single morning!

Two Aerocene sculptures, the Pegasi and the Schellin, were still floating in the air, and we continued to track their movements, soon discovering that both had crossed the German border into Poland. While some of the group then finished the launch by packing up and having a nice lunch, two of us jumped in a van and started to follow the Pegasi eastward, via the Pican Pica and SPOT trackers, hoping to recover them when they landed. 

It was discovered that Pegasi sculpture landed in northwest Poland at 12:52 p.m. Launched at 10:02 a.m. on 4 March 2017, the Pegasi floated nearly 3 hours and reached an altitude of 9 km before landing! We are now trying to determine the reason for the Pegasi’s relatively sudden descent. 

 

© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017
© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017
img-4-march-schoenfelde-launch-23img-4-march-schoenfelde-launch-23
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img-4-march-schoenfelde-launch-26img-4-march-schoenfelde-launch-26
img-4-march-schoenfelde-launch-27img-4-march-schoenfelde-launch-27
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© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017
© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017
© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017© Photography by Studio Tomás Saraceno, 2017

Our stellar team tracked the Pegasi soon after it landed around 3:00 p.m. in an area close to Glezno, Poland.

The Pegasi sculpture landed high in the trees near a small lake in a marsh area. The team managed to retrieve it the next morning with some very kind help from the local residents.

Many thanks to everyone who joined the 4 March 2017 Schönfelde launch both online and in person, and to Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein,  Museum Haus Konstruktiv, ZurichPublic Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, and Radioamateur for their invaluable support and dedication. If you would like to get involved in preparing for the next Aerocene launch, write to us at info@aerocene.org. Until next time…!

#aerocene #pegasi #schellin #liftedbythesun

THE 51 PEGASI B FLOAT DATA:

STARTING POINT:
03/04/2017 10:02:51 AM
52.45095, 14.0485

LANDING POINT:
03/05/2017 12:52:06 AM
53.14799, 15.345

DURATION:
2:49:15 H

DISTANCE:
127 KM

SCHELLIN FLOAT DATA:

STARTING POINT:
03/04/2017 11:09:50 AM
52.45106, 14.04846

LANDING POINT:
03/04/2017 07:37:40 PM
53.71835, 20.09727

DURATION:
8:28:50 H

DISTANCE:
475 KM

Aerocene Campus

Aerocene Campus

November 26, 2016 | Exhibition Road, London

Aerocene comes to Exhibition Road for a multidisciplinary artistic project co-produced by the members of the Exhibition Road Cultural Group, gathering together 17 prestigious cultural and scientific institutions in London, among them, the Serpentine Galleries, Imperial College London, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Royal Geographical Society, the Victoria and Albert Museum,  and the Goethe Institute.

How can we hack the Anthropocene to create the Aerocene?

The first Aerocene Campus is an open invitation to explore, extend and imagine the Aerocene Epoch through the sculpture of the Aerocene Backpack.  The Campus asks how community-driven practices with the Aerocene Explorer can inform environmental, social and mental ecologies in post-Anthropocenic worlds. On November 26th, experts from a wide range of disciplines will gather together for a full day of provocation, discussion, collaboration and ‘hacking’ to experiment with the Aerocene Explorer and to co-create the Aerocene epoch.

To hack is to creatively overcome the limitations of a system, to improve or subvert the intentions of its original form in a spirit of playfulness and exploration.  Which geopolitical, social, legal and philosophical “hacks’ do we need in order to enter the Aerocene?  With this central question, the Aerocene Campus calls upon researchers, scientists, students and activists to address three key Aerocene challenges: Free Flight, Life in the Air and Sounding. These three topics will be introduced on Saturday morning by a panel of experts, provocateurs, reporters and communicators. The campus participants will then select the hacking session which would like to join for the remainder of the day. In the evening, a reporter from each session will present the results for a final large group discussion.

A group of highly technical hackers that have responded to the open call for Aerocene Hack 2 will join the Campus for the introduction and the first working session.  Since technical hacks must be supported by the multifaceted worlds in which they exist, we hope these conversations will spark cross disciplinary dialogue between Aerocene Hack 2 and Aerocene Campus participants. Aerocene Hack 2 will continue through Sunday, November 27.

Aerocene Campus Challenges

The Aerocene Backpack, a tethered-flight sculpture currently in beta version, will enable anyone to launch their own personal exploration of the atmosphere.  Aerocene Backpack has been developed by Studio Saraceno and a community of collaborators.  Each Aerocene Explorer starter kit comes with a small camera, live streaming appliance and sensing devices to record air temperature, humidity, and air pressure. The Explorer allows participants to take aerial photographs and videos, and to collect meteorological data using non-intrusive, emissions-free scientific exploration tools. All the kit’s contents are secured in a backpack to ensure portability and comfort when out in the field. The exploration has just begun.

The current state of the Aerocene Explorer will be presented by Sven Steudte and members of Studio Tomás Saraceno on the morning of Saturday November 26th.

I. FREE FLIGHT

Challenge: The challenge of the Free Flight hacking session is to enable the Aerocene Explorer to fly free. In its current state, the Aerocene Explorer is usually attached to a rope anchored to the ground.  It flies to a max altitude of 300 metres (the exact height depending on the weather, location and prevailing restrictions). One of the major challenges of the free-flight tests (for example: Gemini 1, 2, 3) is to locate the position of the Explorer’s landing. This is vital for retrieving the footage, collecting data and equipment that the Aerocene Explorer carries. Many Aerocene team members and researchers are collaborating on forecasting the Aerocene Explorer’s future flights’ trajectories. However, the next step is to expand and nuance these tools to simulate the paths of Aerocene Explorers more accurately, and to provide better user engagement options.  The Free Flight hack will expand on the Aerocene Hack 1 organised with the Exhibition Road institutions and external collaborators, such as MIT EAPS.

Campus Questions: There are many obstacles to Aerocene Explorer free flight in an anthropocenic era of aviation control and surveillance.  How might these structures be surmounted legally, socially and politically? Which petitions, manifestos, commissions and actions are necessary?  Aerocene Explorer Free Flight breaks conventional notions of borders and passage.  How can today’s modes of travel and Aerocene Free Flight coexist? This hack invites practitioners from a variety of disciplines, including design, law, sociology, finance and political theory to engage with the challenge of Free Flight in the Aerocene.

Confirmed Participants: Bill McKenna (MIT, EAPS), Bronislaw Szerszynski (University of Lancaster), Harriet Hawkins (Center for GeoHumanities, Royal Holloway), Pete Adey (Royal Holloway), Sir Brian Hoskins (Imperial College London).

II. LIFE IN THE AIR

Challenge: In its current design, the Aerocene Backpack carries a series of devices of photography, live streaming, and assessing temperature differences, humidity, and altitude among other factors. The Aerocene residency on Exhibition Road brings an opportunity to develop these sensors further and invent new ones for a better understanding of the airborne ecosystems in different atmospheric strata. Exploring “life in the air” encompasses one of the exciting new directions for collaboration between Aerocene and scientific research on aerial life.  With the guidance of experts from the Natural History Museum, hacking groups will design new experiments for enhancing our understanding of aerial biodiversity, and how such biodiversity may be impacted by changing climatic factors.  This hack offers working groups the opportunity to adapt the Aerocene Explorer design to accommodate new sampling instruments and technologies, and to target regions of the troposphere and stratosphere, and interconnectivity with the environment at large.

Campus Questions: What is “life in the air” and how can we recognize it?  What would it mean to respond ethically to such life in the Aerocene, and over which scales, times and horizons could we attend to it? What is the relation between life in the air and life on Earth?  How can we summon a novel collective attention in atmospheric  life that breaks from the extractive and polluting logics of the Anthropocene to shape the Aerocene? In these endeavors, critical hacking from humanities, biological and philosophical scholars on what counts as life, death, element, molecule and material is relevant and urgently required.

Confirmed Participants: Anne Jungblut (Natural History Museum, London), Holger Thues (Natural History Museum, London),  Nick Shapiro (Public Lab), Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (University of Westminster) and Hannah Meszaros-Martin (Research Architecture, Goldsmiths).

III. SOUNDING

Challenge: The Sounding hacking session aims to identify applications of sensing, sounding and aerial communication capacities for Aerocene flights and research practices.  “Sounding” is the measurement of the physical properties of the atmosphere using surface, airborne or orbiting instruments. The earliest scientific balloon campaigns such as GHOST (although using helium-filled balloons) were experiments in “sounding” the atmosphere of the southern hemisphere through the transmission and reception of signals from unmanned, long-distance stratospheric balloon flights. Whilst the origin of the term “Sounding” has no direct relationship to the sounds of the atmosphere, massive atmospheric events (weather systems, meteorite entry) can be detected or heard at great distances through the propagation of low frequency infrasound.  We can also speculate how sonification might provide new insights or a different sensory experience of atmospheric data. The Aerocene Explorer can extend such research through collaboration between atmospheric scientists, Aerocene sculptures, and communities of citizen scientists and aero-acoustic hackers.

Campus Questions: What does the stratosphere sound like? This question might be interpreted in a meteorological or acoustic sense.  The key inspirations for various sounding experiments with Aerocene Explorer sculptures might be located in atmospheric science and fluid dynamics as well as musicality, choreography and composition.  In addition to modifications to Aerocene Explorers flights, what would need to happen “on the ground” to shift cultural imaginaries of atmosphere as a more-than-visual space and medium?  The Aerocene Sounding hacking session invites atmospheric scientists, musicians, music technologists, engineers and social scientists to hack sensory and sonic exploration of the atmosphere.

Confirmed Participants: Derek McCormack (University of Oxford), Sven Steudte (Radio Amateur), Sam Hertz (Musician /Composer), Federico Bolza (Sony Music), Andrea Lissoni (Tate Museum).

Aerocene Campus Chairs and Discussion Leaders:

Tomás Saraceno (Studio Tomás Saraceno), Sasha Engelmann (Oxford University and Royal Holloway), Ronald Jones (RCA and Harvard University), Carlo Rizzo (Exhibition Road Commission), Nerea Calvillo (Warwick University).

PROVISIONAL PROGRAM 26/11

10:00 – Opening Remarks

10:10 – Introduction to Aerocene Hacks

10:30 – Panel 1: Free Flight

11:00 – Panel 2: Life in the Air

12:00 – Panel 3: Sounding

13:00 – Lunch

14:00 – Working Session

16:00 – Reporting of Hack Ideas

16:30 – “Fail again, Fail better”

18:00/ 18:30 – Closing Remarks

Aerocene CAMPUS VENUE:
Royal College of Art
Senior Common Room
View on a Map here

TIME:
9:30am – 6:30pm

REGISTER TO ATTEND:
The event is free to attend but has a very limited capacity.
It is therefore essential to rsvp via email at: Rsvp@aerocene.com

Aerocene’s residency at the Goethe-Institut London as part of the Exhibition Road Commission has been made possible thanks to the support of members of the Exhibition Road Cultural Group, Arts Council England, South Kensington Estates and our Founding Patrons: Francesca von Habsburg, Maja Hoffmann and Nicoletta Fiorucci.

The Aerocene Campus Event was generously supported by a British Academy mid-career fellowship awarded to Professor Derek McCormack.

The Aerocene Campus was inspired in part by the Anthropocene Curriculum at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, and is grateful to the HKW for supporting the Aerocene in a number of performances, seminars and public presentations.

 

Aug 27 launch: Schönfelde, Germany

GEMINI FREE FLIGHT

SCHÖNFELDE, GERMANY 27 AUGUST 2016 8:55 a.m.

Hello Aerocene friends and pilots,

Join us for the next leg of the Aerocene “Around the World” carbon-free solar journey!

This Saturday, 27 August at 7:00 a.m., we will be launching Aerocene solar balloon sculptures with atmospheric recording sensor payloads in Schönfelde, Germany (2 hours from Berlin by train). Aerocene traveling sculptures transcend boundaries between art and science and have become a visionary open participatory platform of knowledge production and distribution. In addition to the launch, we invite you to a participate in two challenges and win a prize. This launch is entirely dependent on the weather, so let’s hope for clear, sunny skies with very little wind so we can lift off. If the weather prohibits us from launch ing, we will reschedule to another date. The location for this launch was selected because it falls outside the D-CTR area in Berlin, necessary due to local air traffic regulations.

CHALLENGES:

Challenge 2: 

Be the first to locate the Gemini after it has landed, and help us launch it again!

The first to locate and retrieve the Gemini on the ground will win an aerial video of this leg of Aerocene’s “Around the World” carbon-free solar journey, shot by the Gemini sculptures’ cameras!

Challenge 1:

Can you accurately forecast where the Aerocene Gemini will land?

These are the coordinates for the launch: 52°27’32.4”N 14°03’15.3”E Plot your prediction on this map. Click “Add marker,” then select your forecasted landing point on the map, and add your name to the point when prompted. Whoever forecasts closest to where the Gemini lands will win an aerial video of this leg of the “Around the World” Aerocene journey, shot by the Gemini sculptures’ cameras!

LAUNCH DETAILS:

Aerocene sculptures to be launched: Gemini (TS/Sl5048), Explorer 1.0, Tetrahedron Transparent (TS/S15180) Total payload capacity: approx. 1.4 kg TRACK the flight path and collect atmospheric data in real time: http://aprs.fi/ (Click on the sculpture icon, then click “Show telemetry,” and you will see the data (temperature, humidity, air pressure, etc.) You can WATCH the live video stream for three days after the flight: http://ssdv.habhub.org/DL7AD, and you can see our live video stream images here Special guests: Nick Shapiro (Public Lab), Sven Steudte (Radio Amateur), and from Studio Tomás Saraceno, Adrian Krell, Daniel Schulz, Cara Cotner, Irin Siriwattanagul, Kotryna šlapšinskaitė, and Saverio Cantoni The Aerocene project is a collective endeavour that is being currently developed by a team, united under a non-profit organisation. The sculptures are paving the way for the most sustainable and energy efficient vehicle humans have ever created. Come join us this Saturday. Forecast the Gemini’s landing. Track it down and help us to relaunch, as Aerocene moves “Around the World.” Exercise your thermodynamic imagination.

LAUNCH REPORT:

 Gemini Free flight 27 Aug 2016

On 27 August 2016, just after sunrise, Aerocene returned to the skies once again, embarking on the next leg of its “Around the World” carbon-free solar  journey.

ALTITUDE PROFILE:

 The Aerocene Gemini was able to reach a highest altitude of 16,283 m (53,422 ft)!  The Aerocene Gemini was able to reach a highest altitude of 16,283 m (53,422 ft)!

Temperature inside and outside/AIR PRESSURE/ HumiditY:

Telemetry history graphs for DL7AD-11 in 48 hours

The online challenge:

As for the landing point forecasting challenge, unfortunately there were no winners this time, as no one’s prediction fell within 20 km of the actual landing point. Special mention goes to the 3 people who guessed the closest: Claudia Melendez, Maria Cohen, and yes, Tomás Saraceno! There will be further chances to win coming soon – we are already planning our next launch as our global circumnavigation continues, step by step!

FLIGHT DATA:

Test launch at Ehra-Lessien refugee camp, Germany

Thank you

Thank you to all the participants from IAK-Braunschweig who came to Ehra-Lessien refugee camp on June 3rd! While we were unable to launch any Aerocene sculptures due to high winds and clouds, the workshop was great.

We look forward to going back again very soon!