Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

3play

Flight of the Pongsats

JP Aerospace flights rely primarily on volunteers and helium. A team will take a tray of PongSat experiments out to the desert, attach it to a helium balloon, and launch it. Once the balloon reaches the thin air of the stratosphere, it will burst, and the tray will descend to earth, with a parachute opening to gentle the landing. (Video: JP Aerospace)

Smithsonian magazine   |   :40