Britain’s space programme may have been in the doldrums since the disappearance of the Mars probe Beagle 2, but we are back in the race thanks to some soft-toy astronauts.

Four teddy bears dressed in space suits designed by schoolchildren were launched into the stratosphere by students from Cambridge University’s space-flight club.

From a weather balloon about 30km above the ground, the bears would have had a perspective of the stars in inky blackness and the dramatic curvature of the Earth far below had they been able to see.

Fortunately, they were accompanied by a remote-control camera that relayed images to a laptop computer.

After a flight lasting two hours and nine minutes, they gently parachuted back to Earth and were picked up from a field near Ipswich, 50 miles from the launch site.

Body monitors found that the space suits, which were made from foil and foam and were held together with gaffer tape, had done their job well, insulating the bears in temperatures that fell below -50C.

The world’s first bear-only space flight took off from Churchill College, in Cambridge, on Monday, watched by Year 8 pupils from the nearby Parkside and Coleridge community colleges.

The mission was tracked by GPS and monitors recorded altitude and temperature. At 30km, or around 100,000ft, the atmosphere was just 1 per cent the density at sea level. The bears’ return to Earth began when the expanded balloon eventually burst.

Ed Moore, 21, a third-year engineering student who recovered the teddies from their landing site, said: “It all went smoothly – the GPS plotted their descent and their landing point and we retrieved all four teddies, unhurt, along with the equipment. We weren’t too worried about the landing as we launched the craft in the Fens. The odds it would land in a field were pretty high.”

The mission was preparation for a project to launch a rocket into space for less than £1,000. The team hopes that the 7ft rocket will achieve lift-off from a helium balloon early next summer. If successful, the project will in theory make it possible to conduct experiments in space at a fraction of the cost of having to hitch a ride on a Nasa space mission.

Mr Moore said: “Because of advances in electronics we can use advanced technology similar to that in the Nintendo Wii [the games console] to control the flight at a minimum cost.” He is hoping that the mission will help to launch the next generation of space scientists.

“Space is an inspiring place and getting there brings together science, engineering, imagination, and lots of fun,” he said. “As a team we all have stories of the spark that lit the fire and motivated us to choose science and aim for Cambridge. There can be few more worthwhile things for us to do than to try and provide that spark for the current generation of schoolkids.”

Pupils had a mixed experience of their teddies’ space adventure. Megan Makinson, 12, said: “It was really fun when the balloon was blowing up but we had to hold it in the freezing winds and it felt like we were being smothered by a giant dumpling.”

Kane Robbins, 12, said: “I really enjoyed launching the bears into space and I also enjoyed designing and building the suits.

“The balloon was enormous compared to the normal balloons, and it was really hard to keep hold of, but it was great fun letting go of it.”

Steve Hinshelwood, their science teacher, said: “This was a super activity for the students. They had great fun problem-solving as they tried to turn their original space-suit designs into something that they could actually build. Suddenly scientific ideas such as insulation, convection, conduction and radiation became important. Thinking about weight made ideas of buoyancy, pressure and the composition of the atmosphere relevant.”

Animals with altitude

—Some of the first creatures to experience flight as passengers were a sheep, a cockerel and a duck, in a balloon test flight for the Montgolfier brothers in 1783

—The first V2 rocket flights in the US space programme of the 1940s were crewed by fruit flies and corn seeds – to try to measure the effects of radiation exposure

—The first dog in space was Laika, who reached orbit in Sputnik II on November 3, 1957. The Moscow stray died, hours into her flight

—In 1951 a monkey named Yorick was the first such animal to return alive from a space flight, along with his crew of 11 white mice

—For decades scientists have tried to see whether spiders can spin webs in zero gravity. The latest attempt to find out was foiled last month when one escaped on the shuttle Endeavour’s flight

Sources: Nasa; Times archive

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