Chasing the sun

Project Horizon, the Near Space team from Queen Mary's Grammar School in Walsall, is preparing for its third and possibly most ambitious mission yet. In the early hours of Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th June, the team of sixth formers will use a helium-filled weather balloon to release a proble 30km above the Earth, and seek to capture the moment when the sun rises over the horizon.

The team of pupils have produced a mathematical model that predicts the time at which the sun will first be visible over the curvature of the Earth, with the ultimate objective to photograph and record these moments, using the three on-board cameras. The probe's flight computer controls the probe's GPS and radio communications, and will enable the students to keep track of the probe's progress and identify its possible landing point. A beacon will send a signal to help identify the landing spot of the probe in the rocky Welsh countryside where it is likely to land. Click here for a tour of the probe's payload.

Rapid helps sponsor the project, donating electrical equipment that is used to help build the flight computer and radio tracking device.

In the tradition of unmanned space flight, the probe will transport quite a non-human crew - CASSie, the knitted UK Space STEM ambassador, and Sherlock, the furry mascot of QMGS's partner primary school. Recently they have been joined by 100 tiny astronauts donated by the project's latest sponsor, Minifigures.com. 50 male and 50 female minifigures will fly onboard one of the probes and be offered for sale after the mission, with half of all proceeds from sales going to Project Horizon. The figures will be sold with a certificate detailing the height they reached, with a small sample signed by the British astronaut Dr Helen Sharman and returned to the school for its own fundraising.

It is the third Near Space project that the school's sixth form students have undertaken, following two previous missions that sent balloons into the stratosphere. Last year the ‘Project Horizon’ team attempted to beat the altitude reached by Felix Baumgartner in his world record freefall, and in 2013 the school captured some spectacular footage of their first flight 32km above the Earth’s surface.

The team has received messages of support from a wide range of leading figures, space and STEM  organisations, including British astronaut Major Tim Peake:

@horizonqmgs @qmgs1554 @Rapid_Edu looking forward to following your launches & seeing the images captured!

— Tim Peake (@astro_timpeake) June 12, 2015

The project has also received praise for its outreach programme, which has seen student members of the team visiting local primary schools, sharing the knowledge and skills they have learnt, as well as advising similar projects in other secondary schools and demonstrating at exhibitions.

You can follow the flights on 27th and 28th June on the project's Twitter page and website. 

http://horizon.qmgs.walsall.sch.uk/