K7UAZ Stratocat

K7UAZ Stratocat Project

Around the World in Less Than 80 Days.

Student teams are launching a picoballoon with a WSPR Pico transmitter to pursue long-duration global tracking while advancing flight systems, amateur radio operations, and mission engineering discipline.

Primary Sponsor: ARRL, The National Association for Amateur Radio

ARRL mission: advance the art, science, and enjoyment of Amateur Radio.

Join a Team Track our Balloons View Flight Reports
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K7UAZ Stratocat Mission 3 artwork
K7UAZ campaign artwork for Mission 3.
Project Goal

Build a repeatable student mission architecture for global-scale picoballoon tracking using WSPR telemetry, reliable power, and well-documented launch operations.

Mission 3 Success

Mission 3 launched successfully on Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 10:00 AM (Arizona MST). Live tracking is now active for John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

Mission 2 Lazarus is still flying, so the live mission clock remains at the top of the page while both missions stay active.

Open Mission 3 Tracking Open Mission 3 Status

World Coverage

Mission 2 footprint, one region at a time.

This live map uses Traquito's decoded Mission 2 positions, then bins them into visible world coverage cells. Because the tracker is solar-powered, heard windows are intermittent, and darker cells mean we heard more transmissions from that part of the world.

Live Mission 2 Coverage

Pulling Traquito-resolved live position data in the browser for 12m / Channel 39 / K7UAZ.

Live
Loading live coverage...
Heat key

Lower intensity means fewer windows heard there. Higher intensity means the balloon returned or lingered longer.

Coverage Stats
Visited Cells -- Distinct 1 degree coverage cells from resolved positions
Tracked Windows -- Distinct windows where the balloon was heard
Latest Grid -- Waiting for the latest resolved spot...
Data Span -- Mission 2 live archive window
Most Visited Grids

These are the most frequently heard resolved grids so far, using 6-character Traquito positions when available.

    Data Source

    This version imports Traquito's browser-side search and decoder pipeline directly from GitHub Pages, so it can resolve the custom BtGrid6 / BtLat / BtLng track without needing a backend server. The homepage then bins those resolved positions into 1 degree map cells, keeps solar-related silent gaps as normal behavior, and only removes impossible jump glitches or manually excluded jamming windows. If Traquito is unavailable, the map falls back to the regular WSPR grid feed.

    Open Mission 2 Tracking Open Traquito Dashboard

    Featured Flights

    Design A, B, and C mission progression

    Flight reports include mission metrics, hardware changes, and lessons learned so sponsors and members can track technical maturity.