More than two years after a GoPro-fitted weather balloon was sent to the edge of space, the camera that was believed to be lost was recently found by a hiker filled with amazing aerial footage of the Grand Canyon.
Cast in June 2013, the high-flying project took months of planning. According to a Reddit post by one of the team members, the launch was nearly cancelled because of the high cost of helium at the time.
But the project eventually took off.
The camera, which was also outfitted with a smartphone that tracked the GoPro's location, was launched not far from the Grand Canyon. The phone was programmed so that it would notify the group once it fell back down to earth, within cellphone range.
- Watch the video here.
The GPS-enabled phone, however, never notified the group about its location. The five friends figured they had lost the contraption for good because they had miscalculated the camera's trajectory.
It turned out, however, that they weren't wrong. As the contraption plummeted to the ground, the phone lost its signal because it landed in an area with limited coverage.
"We planned our June 2013 launch at a specific time and place such that the phone was projected to land in an area with cell coverage," team member, known as trexarmsss, wrote. "The problem was that the coverage map we were relying on (looking at you, AT&T) was not accurate, so the phone never got signal as it came back to Earth, and we never heard from it."
According to the Reddit post, the camera landed approximately 80 kilometres from the launch point.
In a twist of fate, the GoPro was found by a woman who was hiking through the area recently. The hiker, who also happened to be an AT&T employee, took the phone to a store where they traced it to its owner using the SIM card.
The phone, camera and the stunning footage was returned to the group of friends, who later published the video on YouTube.
