A team of students from Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall captured spectacular images of the sunrise last weekend, as the third year of its Near Space project came to a successful conclusion.
Project Horizon's "Sun Chaser" mission achieved its ambition of recording - in video and still photographs - the moment when the sun first becomes visible over the curvature of the Earth, from a self-built probe that reached an altitude of 36,309m. The probe was launched at just before 2am on Saturday morning from the school's sports field, carried aloft by a helium-filled weather balloon. The probe remained airborne for nearly five hours, with the balloon bursting above the Peak District and landing in a farmer's field near Chesterfield. The team were able to track the probe's progress using GPS and once landed a beacon provided an audio signal.
After the Sun Chaser probe had been retrieved, the students had the exciting but nerve-jangling job of finding out if the probe's three on-board cameras had deployed successfully. During Sun Chaser's first flight the cameras had been badly affected by a difficult launch (more details below), but this time the team found that the stills and video camera had held firm inside the probe and taken images throughout the flight.
What stunning pictures they are! As the balloon neared its highest point, the cameras capture the distant light of the sun as it creeps toward the horizon. The waning crescent moon can clearly be seen, before finally the sun breaks into view and brings light to the world (or at least the UK!). The timing of the flight was perfect, vindicating the work the students had put into the mathematical model that was at the heart of the Sun Chaser project. This accurately predicted the timing of the sunrise at a given altitude.
Rapid helped sponsor the project, donating electrical equipment that is used to help build the flight computer and radio tracking device.
You can view images from the flight here.
Practice makes perfect
This was the school's second attempt to catch the moment of sunrise. Their first mission was made the previous weekend from the school's field centre in North Wales. While the balloon reached a significant altitude and the payload was retrieved successfully, the team experienced a number of issues during the flight.
Gusty winds at launch led to the two payload boxes being dashed against some fence posts, and problems with the flight computer took the radio transmitter down. The team were able to find the payload but they discovered that the recording equipment had been disturbed by the difficult launch. The still cameras had not taken any pictures and the GoPro camera had been dislodged, meaning that while footage was recorded only a partial view was possible. Having lost one of its batteries it only recorded for half of the possible time.
The successful conclusion to the third year of 'Project Horizon' has not only been about the missions. The students have also undertaken a number of outreach sessions in local primary schools, providing information about the project, practical activities involving weather balloons and the science of astronomy. One of the schools even saw their teddy bear mascot take a ride in the probe itself!
http://horizon.qmgs.walsall.sch.uk