A team of seven Montana State University students will travel to Spain this summer at NASA’s invitation to launch stratospheric balloons and conduct experiments during a total solar eclipse, according to a Mar. 23 announcement.
The trip highlights the university’s ongoing role in national scientific research and student engagement. The students, part of MSU’s Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP), will lead teams from other American universities as they study atmospheric changes caused by the eclipse and share images from near space.
On Aug. 12, the MSU group will join teams from the University of North Florida, University of Bridgeport, and University of Hartford in Borgas, Spain. Each team plans to fly two balloons equipped with up to 13 pounds of scientific instruments for various experiments, including those designed by local Spanish students. Among their objectives are measuring atmospheric ozone changes during the eclipse and using a long-range radio device called LoRa—developed by MSU students—to monitor radio communications affected by shifting atmospheric conditions. “LoRa can communicate where the payload is and also send us great information about what’s going on with radio signals as things change in the atmosphere with the darkening from the eclipse,” said Angela Des Jardins, director of the Montana Space Grant Consortium and associate research professor at MSU’s Department of Physics. “So, it’s a little bit communications, a little bit science, and it also pushes the bounds on what that technology can do and shows us how far we can possibly transmit a good signal with that system.”
Simultaneously near Reykjavik, Iceland, NEBP teams from other universities will launch additional balloons equipped with radiosondes alongside scientists from Iceland to record data such as temperature and humidity through different layers of Earth’s atmosphere before, during, and after totality. These findings are expected to improve understanding of weather patterns and climate models.
After reaching altitudes between 90,000-120,000 feet over Spain toward sunset on Aug. 12—where darkness reveals Earth’s curvature—the student teams will direct equipment onboard for data collection before recovering parachuted payloads guided by beacon signals.
NEBP was founded at Montana State University in 2014 under Des Jardins’ leadership for hands-on student participation in advanced engineering projects tied to eclipses worldwide; its results have been published internationally. “We have this opportunity to be part of NASA’s presence for the eclipse in Europe because our great project came to mind when they were thinking about doing science for eclipses,” Des Jardins said. “This is something our students will never forget.”
Montana State University leads state research funding efforts with annual expenditures exceeding $288 million according to its official website. The university ranks among the top five percent globally per rankings cited by its official website, enrolling approximately 17,165 students evenly split between residents and nonresidents according to university data. As Montana’s land-grant institution based in Bozeman—with strong academic programs spanning education outreach—MSU serves both local communities through volunteerism as well as broader audiences via public service initiatives according to its official website.