Edge of Space - A trip to the Edge of Space begins here

OK, if you listened to the HursleyFM podcast, you would have heard about the Edge Of Space project where jonnymac from IBM and team of awesome Msc students from Imperial college worked together to create their own space program...

This was a fantastic project that ran for a number of weeks, and culminated in a launch of a probe to 20 miles above the earth, where it transmitted telemetry on light readings, temperature and movement, and then used them to control the conditions of the IBM Hursley Innovation Center in real time.  This is where their journey begins...

Here is the podcast where they get down to brass tacks on how to start.

http://edgeofspace1.podomatic.com/entry/2015-05-22T08_41_21-07_00

And below, is an extract from their initial blogs, which gives an indication of the sorts of things to keep in mind should you (and why wouldnt you?) decide to have your own space program - hope you enjoy it!

Hey there! This is our first blog post documenting our quest to send a balloon to the edge of space. We’re going to be writing 3 or 4 of these a week, covering our successes, failures, triumphs and defeats, late nights and early mornings. We’re planning on launching the week of the 8th of June 2015 – so with a little over a month to get ready, we’re busy pulling it all together so everything goes smoothly.

Today we had our first meeting, to chart out our plan for the next few weeks. We divided up our task – send a weather balloon into space and simulate the ascent – into many smaller tasks.

Luke and Aditya are building our sleek-looking website, which will soon host the Heads Up Display and the simulation on the ascent. The communications systems, to handle the stream of video and sensor data back down to earth, is being investigated by Jonny and Jake. Constance, Dylan and Alex are looking into the hardware, which includes the sensors, data collection, and logging – and which packages it all together to be beamed back down to earth. Dylan is also dealing with the paperwork we need to submit to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to allow us to send a balloon into the stratosphere without it being hit by a passing plane, and together with Aditya is investigating options to bring the data to life with our simulation.

We’re going to continue with our research and building the website tomorrow whilst we wait for some parts on order. We can’t wait to get building soon.