BAY MINETTE — The Faulkner State Community College Engineering Club will be launching a satellite balloon at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 27 at the FSCC track field on campus.

The main presenter from the NASA BalloonSat Workshop will be present as guide through the process of both a successful launch and a successful recovery of the balloon.

Ten members of Faulkner State’s Student Engineering Club spent four days in Huntsville for the NASA BalloonSat Workshop held last February at the Space and Rocket Center.

These students had hands-on experiences, including launching and retrieving an experiment weather balloon. The balloon traveled 20 miles into the stratosphere; and student Joe Kahl captured the entire trip by attaching a camera to the flight. His camera was set to take pictures every 10 seconds, from launch to landing, so while it was suspended from the balloon, it snapped pictures of the Earth.

According to workshop information online, teams learned about ballooning, building a sensor payload, testing it and flying it at high altitudes.

During the workshop, attendees also learned about tracking software.

The purpose of the workshop was to encourage students to pursue careers in science, mathematics, physics, computer science and engineering.