Three Cheltenham Ladies’ College pupils are about to have their projects launched into space, this August 2021.
The astronomical achievement will see research experiments from Year 12 pupils Larissa, Sophie and Ashley taken on board the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility.
Their experiments form part of the Cubes in Space global engineering design competition by idoodlEDU inc., which invites young people from the ages of 11 to 18 to design experiments in 4cm cubes to be tested in space – or a near-space environment – on a NASA sounding rocket and zero-pressure scientific balloon.
Experiment designer and Cheltenham Ladies’ College student, Ashley, said: ‘For the last six months, we have worked on writing research proposals to submit to the programme.
‘Globally, only 120 experiments are chosen each year, so we were delighted to hear that five of our proposals have been accepted for flight on the research balloon.’
Since 2014, Cubes in Space has flown 900 experiments from across 73 countries and has allowed students to use critical thinking and design research that connects to real-world Earth or space-based problems.
After the latest experiment has finished, the cubes will be returned to the girls so that they can collect all relevant data and analyse the results from the mission.
For more information, visit cheltladiescollege.org.
