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The SPS team participating in the Asgard programme had a successful trip. From an inauspicious launch the balloon rose to an altitude of 28km, touching down in Germany after the longest flight in the history of the Asgard programme. The team consisted of Fifth form pupils Aditya, Max, Henry and Sorena. Please see their report below.

For information about the programme see this link:

“In this year’s Asgard project, 23 teams from five countries all launched their own experiments in weather balloons that (were meant to) go to around 30 km into the atmosphere and then share their findings with the other teams. The launch took place in Brussels and included talks from various scientists and even a Belgian astronaut. On the first day, at the Brussels Planetarium, we listened to the other teams present their experiments, presented ours and explored the Atomium. The next day we went to the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium and the rest of the team attended some workshops at the different scientific institutes whilst I waited to integrate the experiment onto the gondola. After lunch we launched the balloons – there were two balloons: one big, one small and the small one was launched first but it unfortunately hit a tree, untangled itself from the tree and landed on the roof of a building until it eventually took off. This was due to an issue with the amount of gas in the balloon and it only made it about a kilometre from the launch site and was unrecoverably stuck in a different tree. Thankfully our experiment was in the larger gondola and the balloon did not have any issues and the balloon was recovered later that evening and we were able to process the results. After the launch we got to talk to some Belgian scientists and got to hear from a Belgian astronaut that had been to space. 

Our experiment consisted of a BMP280 sensor that collected data on pressure and temperature as well as a spectrometer that was supposed to give us information on the different components of sunlight. Whilst the electronics and software worked perfectly, the diffraction grating in the spectrometer didn’t work (due to an error that occurred during assembly) so we just had the temperature and pressure grating however it was still a good result considering some teams still had their experiment stuck in a tree. We presented our findings the next day.

We very much enjoyed the interesting and informative experience of attending the asgard balloon project.We learnt a lot from both the other teams and the scientists and astronauts we heard from. Despite the problems with the diffraction grating and a rather late delivery of our experiment to Brussels we still managed to get some data to present and we learnt other skills such as public speaking and working under time pressure. Overall it was an incredibly enjoyable and informative experience.

Thank you very much”

Written by Max (Fifth Form)