Post Flight Results

Results collected from the 8/30/25 test flight of KAOS-1.

Overview

After three years of development KAOS-1 was released with a balloon just after 10:00 am on August 30, 2025. The flight was just under two hours in length and had to be recovered from the Hal Scott Regional Preserve about 10 miles away from our launch site. The data is currently unclear but we believe that our payload likely reached an altitude of 120,000 feet.

KAOS-1 Flight Video

A collection of pictures and videos captured by our team along with those captured by KAOS with its two onboard cameras

Lessons Learned

The primary issue encountered during the KAOS-1 flight was overheating of the onboard electronics, a risk that had been underestimated during design and testing. One of our major requirements when we begun development was withstanding extremely harsh frigid temperatures along the majority of our flight. In order to withstand the flight environment we insulated the box, sealed all gaps with Kapton tape, and added two hand warmers inside the bus (more details on this can be found here). This was the solution we went with on flight day, however, there was a major component overlooked with this approach. We put too much consideration on withstanding the cold and didn't consider the potential for overheating with the heat generated from the hand warmers and electronics. This likely wouldn't have been an issue in a perfect world where launch operations run as planned, but that was not our experience. Having idled about an hour with a sealed payload bus before being released a lot of heat was generated by the hand warmers. This is what we believed caused a couple of power cycles not long into the launch, as KAOS wasn't quite high enough into the atmosphere to be cooled by the frigid environment.

Looking forward to KAOS-2 we have begun to brainstorm solutions to thermal regulation with our payload as that project will likely be an advanced iteration of version one. The most prominent solution being put forward would be a 3D printed sliding door that could be installed into one of the panels and controlled by a linear servo. We would need create a software control loop that constantly collects data from a thermistor in the interior of the bus and determines if the door should be opened or closed to adjust the internal temperature.