Students at Catalina Foothills High Schoolsuccessfully launched their first spacecraft Monday morning. Juniors and seniors in an astronomy and physics club built their own computer to collect data from above the earth's atmosphere.
The spacecraft was launched by a balloon and collected data on temperature, atmospheric pressure, and video from 30 kilometers above Earth's surface.
The balloon that’s launching this spacecraft is filling up!! The spacecraft will fly for a few hours collecting data and will (hopefully) land safely near Willcox! pic.twitter.com/BAsal8bezl
— Alexa Liacko (@AlexaLiacko) March 5, 2018
Students spent months planning the "Falcon-1" launch and met early in the morning for final preparations.
HAPPENING NOW: A group of high schoolers is launching a spacecraft into the atmosphere this morning! We’ve got more on the months long preparation coming up! pic.twitter.com/ZTnRkaMG11
— Alexa Liacko (@AlexaLiacko) March 5, 2018
Once the balloon was launched, it flew for a few hours and landed in the desert near Willcox. Students were able to recover it intact using GPS they installed on the spacecraft.
Their teacher, Michael Winters, helped raise the money for this project and said he hopes this is the first of many launches from Catalina Foothills High School.
The spacecraft survived!! Here are some photos from the journey! Amazing work by students at Catalina Foothills High School! https://t.co/bJslMd65KG
— Alexa Liacko (@AlexaLiacko) March 6, 2018
