During flight, a sounding rocket is subject to a unique environment - severe vibrations and substantial heat flux. In order to design payloads, precise measurement of these conditions is required. This paper presents preliminary results from HEDGEHOG REXUS Project, whose scientific goal was to characterise the thermal and dynamic environment of REXUS sounding rockets. For this purpose, two new sensors have been designed - mechanical...

Stratospheric balloons are one of the most accessible methods of near space exploration. Their applications include capturing of extreme living organisms whose existence in the stratosphere has been suggested in the literature. These potential microorganisms would have evolved to survive the unique environment of low temperature, low pressure and high solar radiation. This makes the development of...

The stratospheric microbiome has been investigated several times using the methods of classical microbiology. In this experiment, we have combined them with some novel approaches including whole- metagenome amplification, Maldi TOF mass spectrometry and Sanger DNA sequencing. The results of the experiment may provide the scientists with knowledge about the mechanisms of survivability of microorganisms in stratospheric conditions...