Gallery shows Northampton school mission to send cameras into space

Project Aurora was launched at The Duston School on Friday by computer science teacher Donovan Pillay and a group of Year 11 pupils to highlight how they can combine their knowledge from different lessons on real-life projects.The aim of the project was to send two cameras into the stratosphere, one to video the horizon and the other to capture aerial footage of the earth at high altitude. The students merged all their knowledge from maths, physics, chemistry and computer science to ensure a successful mission.All research and calculations were completed in January but the school had to wait for good weather conditions and permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to launch.The cameras were sent into space on Friday (June 28) at 10.47am and reached an altitude of 76,000ft - just short of their 80,000ft target.On descent the camera landed just north of Cambridge, exactly where pupils predictions had suggested, before the camera was recovered by their GPS tracker.Science teacher Donovan Pillay said: "During computer science lessons we have, on many occasions, used NASA as an example with regards to computer systems."As a class we had numerous discussions about space and cosmology."So when I stumbled across others that have done similar projects, I pitched it to the students and they were immediately on board."Our aim was to do the project but on a shoestring budget."I think one of the main lessons learned post project is that we can trust the Science and the Mathematics that we had done pre-launch. The students were excited about the fact that their calculations were accurate."