BLUE JAY 2021

Developed by Universidad Alfonso X el Sabio / Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM)

Balloon launched on 7/16/2021, from Virgen del Camino Airport, León, Spain

Purpose of the flight and payload description

This balloon flight was carried out by B2Space as part of their Blue Jay program that engages universities to provide students with unique opportunities to learn, develop their skills, fly and test their experiments in the edge of Space. The objective of the program is that, through a semester of the academic year, the students will design a CubeSat to perform a mission of their choice, build the satellite and perform ground tests of the equipment and finally to fly their CubeSat to the edge of Space, in a Stratospheric flight at around 30 km of altitude performed by B2Space.

This particular mission involved two teams of spanish students from Universidad Alfonso X (UAX) el Sabio and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) both from Spain. The UAX group was responsible for the development of the Cubesat platform with various sensors, cameras and devices with the aim of observing forest masses and crops and correlating them with climate change variables such as ultraviolet radiation, pressure changes, and more. The UPM team has also participated in the experiment with a project to measure temperature increases in the stratosphere.

Video footage of launch operations

Details of the balloon flight

Balloon launched on: 7/16/2021 at 7:00 local
Launch site: Virgen del Camino Airport, León, Spain  
Balloon launched by: B2Space
Balloon manufacturer/size/composition: Zero Pressure Balloon  
End of flight (L for landing time, W for last contact, otherwise termination time): 7/16/2021 at 8:05 local
Balloon flight duration (F: time at float only, otherwise total flight time in d:days / h:hours or m:minutes - ): 1 h 5 m

The balloon was launched from the Virgen del Camino Airport in Leon, Spain at 7:00 local time. Although the mission was intended to reach an altitude of 22 kilometers, the balloon did not reached its planned altitude due to some delays on the launch, that forced the Spanish air authority to order the early abortion of the mission. Hence, the maximum altitude reach was 18 km and total flight time was 1 hour and 5 minutes.

External references

Images of the mission

The payload just before the launch The balloon ascending      

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