Homemade equipment films the Earth from space

Alex Baker and Chris Rose, both PhD students from the university’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, sent a helium-filled balloon with two video cameras and a tracking device up into the atmosphere, filming video and taking pictures as it went.

The balloon was launched from Ashborne, Derbyshire, on 17 December 2010, and was in flight for approximately two hours and 50 minutes, before landing in a field in Strethall, Cambridgeshire — a journey of more than 100 miles. The location, which is Rose’s home town, was chosen specifically, as it was predicted that launching there would result in the device landing in a rural area.

The video footage shows the balloon being launched at sunrise and rapidly climbing above the clouds, filming the ground below and eventually showing the curvature of the Earth’s atmosphere. After swelling to many times its original size, the balloon eventually burst, allowing the parachute to open and the box to descend back to Earth. It is thought that at its maximum height, the balloon reached an altitude of 37km.