A Live View From Space | Video

Alex Hagan | 4/27/2012

The space program won`t be sending any more shuttles into orbit for the foreseeable future, but there are still a few ways to take photos from outer space. Students from Century High, Bismarck High and Horizon Middle School are teaming up to give us a look in space using a balloon satellite.

But they won`t have to wait for the balloon to come back to earth to see what it shows.

"What our payload is designed to do is to send down a live picture using amateur television on the ham radio spectrum," said student Jordan Bitz.

The North Dakota Space Grant Consortium is funding the project. Teachers and students ranging from grade school to college will be coming to Bismarck to witness the launch.

The camera will be suspended from the bottom of a balloon and travel to nearly 100,000 feet.

"When you see the pictures and the data coming back from something that seems like it`s out in space and you know that you had your hands on that project, and you`re able to do something that`s out of this world. It`s just an uplifting feeling for the kids," said teacher Mike Walz.

Students have been constructing the balloon satellite at Century High School all week.

"I want to be an engineer so doing this type of stuff just kind of helps me gain some more knowledge on what I will be doing later on," said student Sage Walz.

The balloon will start out at six feet in diameter, but eventually expand to 40 before it pops. Students say they`re excited to capture rare footage and hold on to it for the future.

The balloon launch had been scheduled for this weekend, but it has been postponed because of bad weather. It has not been rescheduled so Monica it looks like we`ll have to wait for the lift-off.

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