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High school students from different European Space Agency (ESA) Member States were able to watch their own ‘satellites’ soar into the sky aboard suborbital rockets during the first European CanSat competition, held at the Andøya Rocket Range in Norway.

The CanSat competition, organised by ESA’s Education Office and the Norwegian Centre for Space-related Education (NAROM), challenged teams to build their own small CanSat ‘satellite’ in six months, with each team developing an experiment that would fit inside a 350 ml soft drink can. These investigations ranged from calculating variations in Earth’s magnetic field and tracking the Sun, to measuring solar radiation and levels of carbon dioxide.

On 17 August, the students were able to watch five Intruder rockets launch their CanSats from Skarsteindalen, a former military facility close to Andøya Rocket Range. The mini-payloads soared to an altitude of 1km before parachuting back to Earth. Although there were some last-minute technical hiccups, all CanSats were deployed successfully and all teams were able to perform at least part of their scientific missions. On the following day, the expert jury announced the results of its evaluation of the projects and selected three winning teams. The bronze award went to the Brussels Vikings team from Sint-Pieterscollege Jette in Belgium, while the Irish team Triailliú from Laurel Hill School, Limerick, won the silver award. The gold award winners were 'Team Eclipse' from St Paul's School in London, United Kingdom.

The full news story, including a video of the day's events can be found on the ESA website.