“On Friday, September 5, 2025, at 10:00 GMT, Balua, in collaboration with APPFQ, launched a high-altitude balloon in Setúbal. This time, the mission featured contributions from university professors and carried an experiment on radiation and particle physics developed by researchers from LIP–UMinho.”
Balua is launching another balloon, this time with Escola Secundária de Tondela.
This event will occur this Monday (June, 4th) in Tondela, at 11:00 GMT.
Here is the launch information:
Balua is launching another balloon, this time with Salesianos do Estoril. The objective of this launch is to send a school project to near space.
This event will occur this Tuesday (March, 28th) in Estoril, at 10:00 GMT.
Here is the launch information:
Design, layout and routing is finished, what a fantastic outcome!!
Balua’s All In One Tracker second iteration is now on it’s way to the fab house (this time we’re going to try oshpark).
The overhaul PCB are has decreased 34% from 55*100mm to 55*60 mm while keeping all the features and adding a huge cutoff Fet, more options, headers and a great 9DOF IMU!
Our GitHub repository has been updated as well, check it out!
This is the first time we go all the way down the road, from the breadboard to the final PCB small production run.
This article shares some pictures of the process we went thru to get our custom tracker!
Well, it all starts with a layout form Eagle (this one is available form our GitHub Repository).
When the layout is ready, Gerber files are sent to a PCB house (we’ve used hackvana).
Once the PCBs arrive, it’s time to check every detail, place the components on the PCB, check if everything fits and place it in the fixture block, as pictured below.
In the picture above the PCB lays on a Stencil8 alike fixture block, ours was made using a piece of acrylic laying around the workshop instead of solid aluminium, but works fine!!
This fixture block and tooling pins are crucial to get a perfect alignment between the PCB and the stencil.
Next step is simple, spread solder paste and pick&place (by hand) every single component. Put it in the reflow oven for 10 minutes and it’s done!
This is the result! Isn’t it beautiful?
The specimen in the picture flew in our last launch and proved to be rock solid!
Here is the Video of our New Tracker launch, the new tracker and cross band repeater first flight test. Big Thanks to LARS for this great video and support during this mission!
Yesterday was an awesome day for Us!
1º – Our new tracker worked flawlessly during the flight (aside not reaching any igate except our chasing car during a very fast descent!)
2º – The very experimental cross-band repeater almost reached the entire Iberian peninsula and was very busy with QSOs from Cascais(PT), Algarve (PT), Entroncamento (PT) to Cordoba (ES), Villacarrillo (ES), Gibraltar (ES). Balua’s CR6BAL repeater was definitely a huge success! Something to improve and build on!
3º – Balua’s payload landed in Spain, few hundred meters from the Portuguese border, north of Badajoz (ES). The recovery was nice and easy with a helping hand from the land owners!
4º – Last but not least, this day was a better day thanks AMRAD (very busy as well hosting a great field day) and LARS. Thank you all!
Dona Maria II high school First Flight!
Mr. Pikinhas (João Abel Vaz) found our most precious payload.
We found it! =)
We and Solar do Mimo successfully launched and recovered everything. Here is a sample of the photos that were taken. More will come soon.
Today we’ve made a GPS mount for our quad! Built from scratch and printed in house!
All the files required can be found HERE.
Take a look!
