Wallpaper 10

A shiny metallic radar reflector is hung below the

sculpture, along with a Pecan Pico 10.b tracker and solar

cell. This enables the sculpture to send live photos and

positioning via APRS radio waves back to the Earth, to

be captured by the team monitoring it from the ground.

Sven Steudte, a specialist in satellite technology,

designed the Around the World sculpture’s tracker and

all the software connected to it, together with another

Aerocene participant, Thomas Krahn. He is monitoring

the path of the device on his laptop, helped by a

community of Polish radio amateurs. Later, at nightfall,

they lose contact with the sculpture, travelling at

12,000m through the lower stratosphere, just east of

Warsaw. ‘It may have dropped to the ground,’ says

Vogler, ‘or it may keep going, circumnavigating the

Earth.’ They will know when someone picks up contact

with it via its radar reflector again, or finds it on

the ground and returns it to the address on its label.

Once the launch has been celebrated and we lose

sight of the prototype in the glare of the afternoon

sun, the team decides to unpack one of the Aerocene

Explorers. Saraceno tows the balloon out onto the lake

in a canoe, ties a couple of GoPros to it and releases

it into the afternoon sky. But heat clouds have now

formed above us, and after a glorious surge, the

balloon sinks gently beyond the far side of the lake,

where it would be retrieved a few hours later with

the help of the general public.

Left, each free flight is documented by a camera and a GPS tracker attached to the sculpture;

right, an ultra-light radar reflector that improves the visibility of the sculpture during flight

Tomás Saraceno: Aerocene