As part of the University of Cambridge’s 800th Anniversary celebrations the Cambridge University Spaceflight team is delighted to announce the UK Space Challenge 2009. This national competition is aimed at teams of science students aged 14-18, or Science Clubs and Youth Clubs.

The challenge is to build an innovative scientific experiment that will be taken as a payload to the edge of space by a CU Spaceflight high-altitude helium balloon. Students teams will compete to design, construct and test innovative scientific experiments that can withstand the cold and vacuum of space. The winning five teams will have their experiments launched to roughly 25km altitude (see photograph right) by the CU Spaceflight team and will gain first hand experience of designing equipment for the space industry. Could this be the cover of your next school magazine??

A detailed competition flyer is available here.

The official press release is available here.