What started as one student’s STEM elective has grown into a full, student-run space agency, and this month it headed more than 600 kilometres west to Cobar to launch two balloons to the edge of space.

In 2024, Hunter School of the Performing Arts (HSPA) captain, Nolan Sobel-Read, worked with teacher Ben Moore, Cameron Owen of Saphi Engineering in Mayfield, and DIYODE electronics magazine to send a weather balloon 28 kilometres into the atmosphere above Nyngan.

The interest that launch created has since grown into the Skybound Project, reflecting the school’s High Potential and Gifted Education (HPGE) offerings: a full Year 10 iSTEM teaching unit running across Terms 1 and 2 and funded by the Newcastle Academy of STEM Excellence.

The Skybound successfully launched two balloons from Cobar High School on July 1.

“This time the students ran the mission themselves,” Mr Moore said.

“Twenty-one Year 10 students operate as a simulated space agency, organised into five specialist teams that mirror a real space program: Engineering and Payload, Flight and Logistics, Media and Storytelling, Sponsorship and Finance, and Recovery and Field Operations.

“Between them the teams designed and built the payload, modelled the flight path, secured funding, managed approvals, documented the story, and planned the recovery. No single team can complete the mission alone.

“This is all down to Nolan’s commitment, the Academy’s support, Cameron’s continued support, and the enthusiasm of the students and staff.

“The Academy’s contribution comes through me as its project officer, in addition to my teaching duties at HSPA, and we now also have backing from Orica as a major supporter, as well as founding supporter Galah Cyber.”

“The project dials directly into the school’s commitment to offering High Potential and Gifted Education opportunities, inspiring students to pursue high level studies with a very practical and real-world end.

“It’s an outstanding motivator for their study and work careers after school.”

The students released two 3000g degradable latex balloons. About two metres across at launch, they swell to around ten metres in diameter as the air thinned on the way up, before bursting, one about 35 kilometres high on the edge of space, the other at about 26 kilometres.

The protective boxes of instruments and cameras streamed data back exactly as planned, parachuting back to earth with a host of information including images, measuring air temperature, pressure, altitude and wind speed.

GPS tracking marked the landing sites in the western plains, one near Tottenham and the other near Narromine. The payloads and data were recovered by the Recovery and Field Operations team after pinpointing the sites and contacting the landholders.

Students from Cobar High School will have the rare opportunity of witnessing a working space program on their doorstop and talking to the students who did the designing, managing, building and flying.

The HSPA team believes their work shows how regional students can take on ambitious, real-world STEM projects that can help to equip them for highly rewarding careers after school.

The project has been fully documented in photographs including shots from the edge of space.