ASGARD

ASGARD 2025

This year we launched an experiment on ASGARD attempting to measure the differences in anthropogenic gas concentrations at different altitudes, to see how they propagate through the atmosphere, hoping to see how future human activity on Mars may affect the planet's atmosphere. We had hoped to collaborate with another team from Belgium to use their radio payload to send down live telemetry data, but due to technical issues, we were unable to do this.

We did this in two ways, on the flight hardware we had sensors for measuring multiple values CO2 and Temperature, and the hardware was also designed to capture a sample of the air at altitude, bring it back down and then analyse it using a mass spectrometer on the ground, to see what it contains. We were successful at measuring the atmospheric conditions in flight, but due to technical difficulties we were unable to bring the air sample back intact.

The source code for the in-flight arduino can be found here.

ASGARD 2023

ASGARD is an international project located in Brussels which allows students to send experiments on a high altitude weather balloon to investigate the conditions of the upper atmosphere. The team this year attempted to investigate how ozone concentration effects the levels of radiation in the upper atmosphere. Unfortunately this project ended in failure when the experiment fell off of the balloon upon its landing in the Rhein river in Germany. Despite this the team have rebuilt the project in preparation for a launch with St Paul's school in London in November 2023. 

Alongside the past mission Space QuEST also has a new group of inspired year 12's who plan to apply for the ASGARD project next year where they aim to experiment the spectroscopy of stars. We hope for them to be successful in this and finally return from an ASGARD mission in triumph.