Croydon girls school builds satellite to put into orbit

Technology

Helen DrewPolitics London

BBC Two pupils in school uniform stand at a workbench in a classroom as their teacher looks on.BBC

The pupils at a Croydon girls’ school have built a satellite

A south London school is on track to become the first all-girls school in the world to send a satellite into space.

The independent Croydon High School has designed and built a working satellite which they aim to launch into low-Earth orbit in the next couple of years.

They hope the plan, called Mission Pegasus, will inspire girls to take on science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, known as STEM, where females are still under-represented.

In 2023, members of the school’s Stargazers Club launched and retrieved two experimental high-altitude weather balloons that reached the edge of space.

A close up of the satellite's metal casing - it is held in the hands of one of the pupils in a darkened room and it has some small green lights on the inside of the casing.

The girls designed and built the satellite and now want to launch it into space

Kaweng, 14, said the group hopes the satellite will be able to take readings of different wavelengths in the atmosphere.

She told Politics London: “From this we can tell what different chemical compositions are in the atmosphere, which can also tell us the quality of air and this can contribute to climate science.”

An image from a camera at high altitude of the earth and space beyond it. There is a distinct haze of atmosphere visible.

An experimental high-altitude weather balloon the girls launched in 2023 took this image

A teacher standing at the front of a classroom in front of a whiteboard. She is wearing a blue patterned dress and a yellow lanyard. The back of the heads of some pupils are in the foreground.

Head of physics Arabi Karteepan wants to encourage girls to take up STEM subjects

Their missions are guided by their head of physics, Arabi Karteepan, in partnership with the University of Bath.

She said: “There is a lack of girls, there’s an imbalance in gender in the STEM field, particularly in space science too.

“And I had a love for space science from a very, very young age and I’ve been very passionate about it.

“Trying to show girls and trying to pave the pathway for them.

“To show that something that you think is impossible is actually possible, and showing them the means, and how’s, and how we go about, and how we get to that destination, is very, very important.”

A young girl in school uniform being interviewed on the roof of a school building. Other buildings and green lawns and trees are visible in the background.

Anaiya, aged 15, said her favourite subjects are physics and maths

Anaiya, 15, said her favourite subjects are physics and maths and she wants to pursue astrophysics as a career.

She said: “I think representation really matters and what we’re doing represents girls in STEM really well, because when girls see themselves in positions like what we’re doing – building satellites, engineering code, speaking to real world scientists – then they believe that that’s possible for them to do (that) as well.”

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