Ascending to the edge of space

Since 2014, Brunel University's electronic and computer engineering department has teamed up with various partners (BBC, University of Cambridge, Bishop Ramsey school) to conduct near-space experiments. We have sent six missions to the edge of space to take pictures, videos, conduct physics and chemistry experiments and just have plain fun!

Under very challenging conditions we have successfully retrieved five of these missions with amazing results. We have recorded temperature, pressure, UV radiation, x-ray radiation and have even recorded cosmic rays hitting our cameras. We have ascended to 110000 feet and looked at the Earth curving, the beautiful blackness of space, and the thin layer of our atmosphere. We even took photographs of the sun setting behind the Earth’s curvature.

Each year we pushed the envelope a bit more and challenged ourselves to produce something more spectacular, ranging from extremely interesting to just plain silly! Look at the pictures and videos of our adventures below.