How do you restart an academic stratospheric balloon programme after taking part in the REXUS/BEXUS programme? How to assemble a new team and share the passion for stratosphere with a new generation of students? In this paper we want to summarise the stratospheric balloon activities at Gdańsk University of Technology held by SimLE Science Club since 2022. We’ll outline the challenges of creating a new team as well as the technical...

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...