UArizona will develop and test balloon-borne payloads at new Mission Integration Lab
At the University of Arizona, the edge of space is closer than it may seem. Just a few minutes south of main campus by car, to be exact. There, at the University of Arizona Tech Park at The Bridges, a new "high bay" facility under construction will allow researchers and engineers to build and test hardware for experiments and missions designed to fly at extremely high altitudes sometimes referred to as the "edge of space," a fuzzy, ill-defined transition zone between Earth's atmosphere and space.
Carol Stewart, associate vice president of Tech Parks Arizona, said the facility was designed with the specific purpose of accommodating large pieces of flight hardware, such as research platforms mounted on balloon-borne gondolas or small payloads for space missions. Officially named the Mission Integration Laboratory, or MIL, the tall, hangar-like building will feature an overhead crane and have space for an environmental chamber to simulate conditions at the edge of space.
