Supporting STEM Education Through High Altitude Balloon Platform Development

<div>Qualified engineers with good theoretical and</div><div>hands-on experience are vital for a country’s healthy space</div><div>industry. However, if a country lacks of space and aerospace</div><div>related higher education opportunities, developing a full</div><div>university master or bachelor program requires high effort.</div><div>Therefore smaller and local educational projects may play</div><div>significant role in talent management and development.</div><div>The UPRA Project (Universal Platform for Robotics and</div><div>Aerospace) is a student project with an aim to develop a reliable,</div><div>widely configurable, low maintenance, high altitude balloon</div><div>platform for university research groups. The project not only</div><div>offers flight opportunities but also provides hands-on experience</div><div>on platform development, payload integration and project</div><div>management.</div><div>Students who join the project can learn the main principles of</div><div>space- and near-spacecraft development. Working on different</div><div>subsystems requires different skill-sets which students can</div><div>improve with the help of experienced team members and mentors</div><div>from the space industry. Since a spacecraft is a complex system,</div><div>project members are needed to specialize in different fields of</div><div>engineering and science. This is an opportunity for students to</div><div>gain confidence and experience in their field of interest of their</div><div>later professional career and also helps them to select the proper</div><div>path of their academic progress.</div><div>UPRA Project also offers flight opportunities for third-party</div><div>payloads which require wider project management skills than a</div><div>typical development project. To maintain a reliable launch</div><div>service flight-planning, logistics, legal paperwork and field work</div><div>at the launch event have to be done. All these activities are</div><div>performed and organized by team members which increase their</div><div>skills in project planning, project management and account</div><div>management.</div><div>Beside university students the project also aims for the</div><div>younger generation to promote STEM fields and reach out for</div><div>the next generation of engineers. This goal let the team cooperate</div><div>with ‘Kids University’ an event of Budapest University of</div><div>Technology and Economics and also with the Space Camp of the</div><div>Hungarian Astronautical Society. These partnerships made it</div><div>possible to the project to demonstrate balloon launches to more</div><div>than 250 young students in the first quarter of 2019.</div><div>Unmanned aerial vehicles and high altitude balloons are great</div><div>assets of space education as they provide hands on experience</div><div>through exciting engineering tasks which could be the base of the</div><div>professional career of any student that takes part in the project.</div>