Launching today for pre-orders is Pi in the Sky, a new GPIO plugin board specifically designed for high-altitude ballooning. With Dave Akerman behind the board and the software, this is something to get excited about. Retailing for £100+VAT, the board has the following features:

• Efficient built-in power regulator providing run time of over 20 hours from 4 AA cells
• Highly sensitive UBlox GPS receiver approved for altitudes up to 50km
• Temperature compensated, frequency agile, 434MHz radio transmitter
• Temperature sensor
• Battery voltage monitoring
• Sockets for external i2c devices, analog input, external temperature sensor
• Allows use of Raspbery Pi camera
• Mounting holes and spacers for a solid connection to the Pi

A whole open-source software suite is also available from GitHub with the following features:

• Radio telemetry with GPS and sensor data using UKHAS standard
• Radio image download using SSDV standard
• Multi-threaded to maximize use of the radio bandwidth
• Variable image size according to altitude
• Stores full-definition images as well as smaller transmitted images
• Automatically chooses better images for download
• Configurable via text file in the Windows-visible partition of the SD card
• Supplied as github repository with instructions, or SD card image

According to Dave’s blog, he is conducting test flights on 4th July and a Pi in the Sky launch on the 5th.

You can read more and pre-order your board from their website.