STRATOSPOLCA on its way to Space
The project will be launched between the 27th of September and the 1st of October from the Esrange Space Center, in Kiruna, northern Sweden.
Abridged version in English by Diana Taborda
After a long process of preparation and testing, everything is ready for the STRATOSPOLCA scientific experiment to go into space in the BEXUS 31 balloon of the European Space Agency (ESA).
The project will be launched between the 27th of September and the 1st of October from the Esrange Space Center, in Kiruna, northern Sweden. It is the work of a group of students from the Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astronautics Section of the University of Coimbra (UC), under the supervision of Rui Curado Silva, professor at the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) and researcher at LIP - Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics, with the support of other researchers and technicians from LIP, the University of Beira Interior (UBI) and the University of Aveiro (UA).
This science experiment, selected by ESA's REXUS/BEXUS (Rocket/Balloon Experiments for University Students) programme in 2019, aims to measure background radiation in gamma-ray wavelength.
"Imagine any old radio that, if it's not tuned to the right frequency, makes that familiar background noise. However, in order to know which channel the music is on, we need to identify what the noise is. In our experiment we do exactly that: we measure the background radiation in gamma rays, the noise, so that we can 'hear the music' coming from distant celestial bodies".”, says Henrique Neves, the spokesperson of the students’ team.