STRATOSPOLCA selected by ESA
"This is a balloon experiment proposed by SAC students from the University of Coimbra and supported by LIP"
ESA announced that it has selected the STRATOSPOLCA experiment, along with 5 others, for the BEXUS 31 launch, to happen between September and October 2020 in Kiruna, Sweden (more info here and here)
This is a gamma polarimetry experiment aboard a balloon, proposed by students of the Astronomy, Astrophysics and Astronautics Section (SAC) of the University of Coimbra. The endorsing professor is researcher Rui Curado Silva (LIP) and the experiment is supported by LIP researchers and technicians.
After the experiment has been shortlisted, the team went to ESTEC in the Netherlands to present the proposal at the BEXUS workshop. It is now known to they have successfully passed this challenge! The next steps, to be planned at a team meeting scheduled for this week already, are detector mounting and electronic system development. The participating students will also have a training workshop in Sweden in the first quarter of 2020.
In the media: