DIY Friday: Get a Space Prize
Taking a break from the usual how-to entries, today will be an inspirational DIY-Friday. If high-schooler can create devices launched into space, you can do anything, right?
A team of students from UK’s Shrewsbury school won a contest to design a device that will be launched on a British-built satellite in 2010:
The competition, launched earlier this year, challenged teams of 14-19-year-olds to design and build a small, compact satellite instrument.
The experiment will be flown as an additional payload on a low-Earth orbiting satellite being built by SSTL.
Conceived by Dr Stuart Eves, from the satellite company, it was set up as an initiative to boost interest in space science among young people.
The winning entry will be given a developmental budget of up to £100,000.
The winning decice is called POISE, “which will measure variations in the ionosphere – the outermost layer of the atmosphere.” It could have a pretty big impact (especially for a few teenagers):
Dr Eves praised all the finalists. He said of the winning entry: “We’re very excited about the potential for the experiment, since, in addition to supporting navigation safety, some scientists in the US and Taiwan think variations in the ionosphere might also help provide indications of impending earthquakes”.
The prize was announced by Soyeon Yi, the Korean astronaut, who you may remember from this post.
Inspired? If so, get to work. There are lots of other space prizes out there – for both high schoolers and adults. This site puts together the list, or follow a blog dedicated to these micro-space-races here. The Moonbuggy race may be the coolest. Yes, even cooler than an ionosphere variation measurer.
