Armenian Students' Device to Be Sent to Space

The Ad Astra team of the engineering club at Ayb School has become the winner of the Kamurjyan Youth Space Competition 2022. The device designed by the students will be sent to space as the competition winner. The flight is scheduled to take place in June from a suborbital rocket.

Young Armenians aged 12 to 21 participated in the competition, with three teams (Ad Astra, AYAS, GDL) advancing to the finals, presenting their devices for final selection.

Members of Ayb School's Ad Astra team include 12th graders Andre Vardanian, Elina Melkonyan, Haik Philiposyan, and 11th grader David Vanyan. Their mentors are engineering club leader Vazgen Gabrielyan and robotics lab staff member, Ayb School graduate Ruben Kerobyan.

The device, weighing 197 grams, will be installed in the suborbital rocket and sent to open space at an altitude of up to 125 km, thus crossing the Karman line, the conventional boundary of space. The device will remain in space for 2-3 minutes, during which it will collect data on the rocket's trajectory, changes in temperature and pressure, speed, acceleration, as well as the intensity of ultraviolet radiation and ozone concentration. The last two measurements will be conducted by sensors designed and proposed by the AYAS team and integrated into the project through collaboration.

After taking the intended measurements, the device will fall back along with the rocket.

Thanks to their victory in the competition, students from the school’s engineering club will also have the opportunity to participate in the Starmus scientific international festival.