West Lafayette, Indiana (August 10, 2018) — Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics has made Launchboxes available to schools for students to conduct space experiments. The small aluminum boxes have already proven successful in a zero-gravity experiment.
Professor Steven Collicott recently finished a two-year project with Cumberland Elementary School second-graders in West Lafayette, in which they used the Launchboxes to send fireflies into space via a Blue Origin rocket. Collicott says the 8x4 boxes were found to be inexpensive enough to be given away to schools, and also that they can be launched into space at a height of 60 miles in the air by the Blue Origin New Shepard rocket, much higher than aircraft or balloons.
“That flight opportunity is now available to schools all over the world at roughly half the cost of high school football uniforms,” Collicott said. “Any school district in the country that plays football can now afford space flight."
A few aluminum Launchboxes
