Science, Technology and Systems Engineering Educational Activities with Stratospheric Balloons

The Space Systems Laboratory of the University of Pisa started in 2021 a student-oriented high altitude ballooning programme intended to provide an opportunity for hands-on experience in support of scientific and technical courses. Following a call for proposal open to all students across all study areas, three experiments were selected featuring multi-disciplinary teams. The programme provides mentoring on scientific, technical and management issues, financial support and assistance with integration and launch on a sounding balloon platform. The goal is to fly the experiments in the stratosphere, retrieve them after landing and process the results; by doing so, the students experience all phases of a scientific mission project, from conceptual design to realization, operations and post-flight analysis. This paper summarizes the features of the programme’s first edition.