Best Practice

Reaching for the skies: The Astrogazers Club

Extra curricular Computing and STEM Skills Outdoor learning
The Astrogazers Club at Croydon High School for Girls reached the edge of space. Head of physics Arabi Karteepan explains how…
Image: Croydon High School for Girls

I joined Croydon High School for Girls in 2021 and contributed to its extensive co-curricular programme by forming and founding a STEAM club called Astrogazers.

I wanted to offer a club that combined both my childhood passion for the cosmos and physics education. The aim of Astrogazers is to promote physics, astrophysics, astronomy, engineering, and STEAM-related careers.

 

Astrogazers first mission

The Astrogazers Club gained attention immediately due to the students’ interest in the physics of space. This inspired me to suggest a mission to launch their very own meteorological weather balloon to the edge of space.

It was an ambitious goal, but the Astrogazers, aged 10 to 16, were driven, motivated and enthusiastic. In fact, Astrogazers became something much more than a club – it transformed into a NASA-like structure, split into teams to focus on operations, health and safety, marketing, and finance.

Every team comprised younger pupils under the guidance of a year 11 student who served as the team leader. The leaders of each team, in turn, reported directly to the flight director, who had oversight of all the teams.

The hierarchical structure ensured streamlined communication and effective coordination. This allowed the girls to learn from the content, as well as implicitly from the organisation, including leadership skills for the older pupils.

Chain of command: The Astrogazers Club set itself up with distinct teams, team leaders and a hierarchy to ensure mission success

 

Funding and collaboration

The Astrogazers conducted months of research into the equipment required to launch a weather balloon and devised a step-by-step method to carry out the launch.

The next step was to source funding. The students created a presentation to secure funding from the school, with the Astrogazers “pitching” the senior leadership team and winning them over.

The team then spent seven months conducting further research into risk assessments, insurance, launch sites, weather-tracking, sourcing helium and other supplies.

During these months, the student experienced a rollercoaster of emotions ranging from utter disappointment to excitement. There were moments we thought it wouldn’t be possible to launch.

A break-through came after the realisation that many of the hurdles would be lowered if we partnered with a university. The Astrogazers made a number of offers and eventually found a partner in the University of Bath and two experts in space and atmospheric physics – Professor Cathryn Mitchell and Dr Robert Watson.

Elsewhere, the Astrogazers connected with the school community through delivering assemblies to the junior and senior school. The junior school participated in a logo design competition, with winning designs earning a place on the payload. We also provided a unique opportunity for everyone in the school community to send their names up to the edge of space.

To honour the memory of Croydon High’s former head Emma Pattison and her daughter Lettie, the Astrogazers uploaded digital memories to the payload.

Astrogazers had amazing support from the whole school and from enthusiastic parents who were inspired by the excitement and vision of the girls. This ranged from practical help with logistics through to encouragement and of course funding.

Our head, Annabel Davies, suggested we name the first project Mission Aspiration. The girls loved this name – it captured the spirit of their first steps into space science.

 

The mission launch

In June 2023, the Astrogazers were ready to soar to edge of space with the launch of their first weather balloon in partnership with the University of Bath. Unfortunately, strong wind gusts led to a friction burn between the release cord and the parachute cord, resulting in a failed launch.

The launch failure gave us the opportunity to reflect on what had worked and what could have been done better. A perfect opportunity for the students to develop their resilience and determination.

One of the younger students, Arya, encapsulated the resilient spirit of the group: "I love how no matter what happens, we never give up!"

We agreed on a having a longer launch window in September. We wanted to take advantage of the favourable wind speeds. As such, we planned to meet virtually every week during the summer break to make plans for the upcoming mission.

We bought a new kit to start building two “generation two” payloads, each named after a pioneering female figure in physics.

One was named after world-leading astrophysicist and former dean of science at Bath, Jocelyn Bell-Burnell, and the other after the UK’s first astronaut, Helen Sharman.

To guarantee seamless assembly of both payloads, a minute-by-minute timeline was crafted outlining specific tasks and responsibilities for each team member. During the last week of August, we rehearsed the plan many times with painstaking attention to detail. The objective was to instil each team member with a level of muscle memory so that everyone would perform their designated tasks with precision and confidence.

 

From failure to success

In early September 2023 our planned launch from the University of Bath campus faced delays due to unfavourable winds from an Atlantic weather front. Despite this, we successfully launched the Bell-Burnell and Sharman payloads on September 12.

We tracked the payloads in real-time. We encountered challenges during the Sharman payload launch, with GPS tracker failures and unexpected rain making things difficult. However, resilience and quick thinking, including activating a back-up GPS tracker, overcame these challenges.

The Sharman payload's unexpected landing in Lock Wood Forest, near the river Thames in Oxfordshire, presented additional hurdles. Fortunately, a forest worker helped with its safe retrieval avoiding potential damage. These unexpected events highlighted the unpredictable nature of our mission and added to the overall excitement.

The drive back to Croydon High School was filled with high spirits. We couldn’t resist the temptation to review the video footage captured by the Bell-Burnell payload, which the second chase team had gone to retrieve. The moment we glimpsed the awe-inspiring view from the edge of space, we erupted in shouts of delight.

The failure of our first weather balloon in June ultimately led to the successful launch of two weather balloons, which reached altitudes above 32,000m – well into the earth’s stratosphere – and captured fascinating data as well as beautiful footage of the edge of space.

The success of Mission Aspiration was published by the University of Bath, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and various news outlets. 

Mission Aspiration: After months and months of preparation, the Astrogazers Club touched the edge of space with their two weather balloons


Unexpected landing: Lock Wood Forest, the landing site of the Sharman payload


Excitement: Members of the Astrogazers Club with their colleagues from the University of Bath, pictured on September 12, 2023, after overseeing the launch of two weather balloons from the University of Bath Sulis Club

 

The impact on the students

Mission Aspiration is a proof that with determination and dedication you can accomplish anything. It has been deeply enriching for the students, providing a real-world project experience outside of the classroom.

Ava, year 5: “The lessons I have learnt from Mission Aspiration include learning how to use complex tech devices, pushing my knowledge further in some topics I have not yet done, and getting better at communicating with others. Always aspire to get all the opportunities you can. Always try your best because there aren’t any limits to how high you can reach.”

Anaiya, year 8: “Mission Aspiration made me understand the values of working as a team and understanding the individual roles and how important even the smallest roles are to achieving a near-perfect end result. I will always treasure the memory that I launched something to the edge of space – at age 12! This has really made me enjoy coming into school because I look forward to the exciting things that we are doing next. I have come to understand the significance of adaptability and flexibility in confronting unforeseen challenges.”

 

What next?

Astrogazers missions are now being incorporated into the physics scheme of work and are referred to in lessons across the STEAM subjects. Pupils make direct links between the physics concepts and its application in the missions.

Since the balloon launch, Astrogazers have completed Mission Ivy Satellite where students understood the basics of radio communication and had their own working DIY satellite ground station to generate unique weather images from meteorological satellites (for more, see their Instagram post here).

Astrogazers are also now pursuing an even more ambitious mission, Mission Pegasus, to launch a CubeSat into space. Another mission – Mission Innovation – is dedicated to launching a model rocket. So, watch this space….

  • Arabi Karteepan is head of physics at Croydon High School for Girls and has 15 years of teaching experience. She is also the director of the Astrogazers co-curricular club. Arabi recently won the Royal Astronomical Society's Secondary Education Award for 2024 in recognition of her work at Croydon High School and in particular in launching and leading the Astrogazers Club. You can find Arabi on LinkedIn.

 

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