Western Bay to join in space race

Bleep, EOL's mascot, with his rocket backpack. Supplied photo.

The Bay of Plenty will join the ‘space race' and achieve a New Zealand first in June when three sub-orbital helium space weather balloons are launched from Tauranga, to ascend to the edge of space to gather critical scientific data on earth's cosmic ray environment.

Led by US Scientist Dr. Tony Philips fromspaceweather.com, a 10 strong party of teachers and students from Earth to Sky Calculus will arrive in the Bay of Plenty in June, hosted by local internet provider EOL.

The purpose of their visit will be to deploy the three helium balloons 30km into the stratosphere to explore the near-space environment and gather scientific data to compare with other flights already conducted around the world.

Formed in 2010 the Earth to Sky Calculus group has launched over 100 research-grade balloons and students of the Earth to Sky Calculus are widely recognised as leading experts in this type of exploration.

Whilst here the international student group will work alongside local college students and EOL Managing Director Terry Coles says the project is an amazing opportunity for local colleges and students in our region.

'The project will involve local colleges and students who will not only be involved in the launches but will also be taught how to do them so that they can continue with their own launches and experiments in the future as part of the global Earth to Sky Calculus community.”

Terry says the Earth to Sky Calculus team are widely regarded for their work in this field.

'Even Nasa has visited the group's launch site near Bishop, California to observe and learn from their procedures. Recent graduates of Earth to Sky Calculus have been accepted at Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, the Maritime Academy and Kings College (London). This is a huge and unique opportunity for Tauranga students to learn from the Earth to Sky Calculus team.”

The balloons will carry payloads focussing on three kinds of research; Monitoring cosmic rays in the atmosphere, stress testing Mars microbes and developing a biological radiation sensor.

Once launched the helium filled space weather balloons will ascend to the stratosphere, and descend by parachute after the balloons pop.

The entire expedition is videoed and a GPS tracking device on the payload allows the student team to locate the payload and gathered data once it lands back on earth, somewhere in the Western Bay of Plenty region.

Terry says the environmental basis of the expedition also sits well with EOL's company values.

'It's a great chance for us to shine a spotlight from space on the region as the balloon flights always attract international attention and at the same time we get to support a project that ultimately helps this planet and that fits well with our company's strong environmentally conscious stance.”

The triple balloon launch is scheduled to take place between June 20-28 and Terry says each of the balloons will include something from a local business or organisation.

'One balloon will carry EOL's Bleep mascot, a second balloon will carry an item that is most representative of the region which will be decided by a Media Works radio competition and the third balloon is available for a local company to sponsor to put a company mascot or team photograph or the likes on it in return for a small sponsorship to cover the cost of the balloon flight.

'Each of the flights are recorded by an on-board full HD video for viewing afterwards, so it's really exciting and a very unique event to be involved in.”

EOL is one of the fastest and most innovative wireless ISP's in New Zealand and is based in Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty.

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