[BigTex5]

And they've just sent a lunchbox-sized aircraft, called Nova 1, into the stratosphere where it captured some very nice pictures of the Earth and the upper atmosphere. Nova 1 was carried to an altitude of 32 km beneath a high-altitude helium balloon and snapped more than 800 images, many like the one above.

The students involved, Carl Morland, Henry Hallam and Robert Fryers, have also released a short video showing the launch in Cambridge. When the balloon carrying the Nova 1 finally burst due to expansion, a parachute deployed to carry it safely back to Earth.

Nova 1 featured some simple, off-the-shelf technology. This included GSM text messaging as well as radio for communications and an ordinary 5 megapixel camera. The students tracked their payload's descent using telemetry and by simply following it in a car.

Eventually they hope to fit a rocket beneath a balloon and use this to carry their craft to 100 km - the edge of space - all for just £1000. It would be no mean feat. Especially when you consider £1000 is about price of one door handle on the space shuttle. And that Anousheh Ansari just paid 13,245 times that for a tourist trip to the International Space Station. Good luck guys.

[BigTex5]

The snapshots of the take off and stratosphere

Movie of the launch

[Turbopilot]

Impressive on the cost front, but suborbital isn't really the name of the game anymore. The hardest part is getting from there into orbit, and achieving orbital speeds. It can certainly be done cheaper than NASA, the Europeans, or the Russians do it now, but only by a matter of degree with current technology. Cutting the cost by orders of magnitude is going to require a breakthrough in technology to replace the big-ass rockets that have been the only way to do it for 45 years, and that breakthrough hasn't been made yet.*

*-actually, it was made some time ago. But the solution to get lots of mass into orbit (or beyond) very cheaply isn't politically tenable.

[Liberal Classic]

"HARMLESS SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT"

I can imagine this thing coming down in some conspiracy theorist's backyard...

[ikka]

I think this kind of thing is awesome. Kudos to the young guys doing this!

Ever seen the movie "October Sky" based on the book "Rocket Boys" by NASA engineer Homer Hickam?

[annie laurie]

Ping

[jmcenanly]

These Cambridge students aren't the only ones doing this sort of thing. The Huntsville Area L-5 society is also doing much the same thing.http://www.nsschapters.org/al/HAL5/HALO/

[MikeD]

Lunchbox sized aircraft? What is the mass? So it goes up 32 km on a balloon, and they hope to go the remaining 68 on a rocket? We'll see if they can do it for 1000 pounds. No offense, but I'll believe it after they've flown.