Thales Alenia Space’s MARSBalloon workshop: inspiring the next generation of space engineers
As part of the 2023 MARSBalloon project, first launched in 2015, engineers from Thales Alenia Space in the UK ran a workshop with primary school students in Gloucestershire. Their mission: to inspire children to learn more about space travel and life on the red planet.
The workshop’s hands-on approach showed students just how exciting and diverse a career in science, technology, and engineering can be, as they worked collaboratively and engaged in scientific thinking to design experiments to be flown on the high-altitude MARSBalloon. Experiments that tested the students’ ideas for technologies that could one day be destined for Mars.
Andy Green, the school’s Head Teacher, said,
“The very nature of space means there’s so many wonderful big questions and children are naturally curious, so when we engage our young children with scientific subjects we’re almost future-proofing them. This will be one of the days that, when they’re older, they’ll look back on with big smiles”.
At the end of June, Thales Alenia Space launched over 200 experiments to 30km above sea level – more than twice the cruising height of commercial airliners – where they experienced conditions very similar to Mars’ surface including -50°C temperatures, pressures 1/100 less than on Earth, and double our planet’s ultraviolet radiation. The balloon then burst, and after descending to Earth via parachute, the experiments were collected and will be returned to schools for students to analyse the results.
For more information about MARSBalloon and how to get involved in next year’s project, visit MARSBalloon | Thales Group.