Order by Dec 10 for Christmas delivery on Explorer, Cadet and Virtual kits shipped within the US. Shop kits
Space Mariner kits give anyone a real high-altitude balloon flight. Families, scout troops, clubs, schools, and hobbyists build the payload, predict the path, launch it, track it to the stratosphere, recover it, and see what it recorded.
Everything you need for one complete near-space flight, with a step-by-step mission guide from the launch plan to the final data set.
Up past Mount Everest, past the jets, into a black sky. Then the balloon pops and your payload floats home under a parachute.
One flight's worth of hardware plus the mission guide.
Why the balloon grows as it climbs, and what sets the burst altitude.
Layers of the atmosphere, read straight from your own temperature data.
Designing a payload that survives cold, low pressure, and landing.
Graphing a real flight and comparing the prediction with the actual path.
Both editions fly the same balloon to the same altitude. What changes is how much you build yourself and how deep the activities go. Order as many kits as you need.
Every kit ships with a printed lesson guide that takes your crew step by step through the science, the build, the tests, the launch and the mission report. Each lesson lists materials, timing, what to say, discussion questions and a printable worksheet. No science background needed.
Pre-assembled data logger and tracker, so younger crews can focus on the flight and the science.
Teens and adults wire and program the data logger themselves, run their own flight prediction, and write a full mission report.
No limit on kit orders. Kits ship within the US, and every order includes a printed Mission Brief and lesson guide. Choose how many kits and add add-on missions on the secure checkout page. Ordering for a large group, school, or event? Email us.
We are flying a real balloon to the edge of space and filming the whole flight. Your crew builds hands-on experiments and a working sensor at home, then watches the flight and works with its real data once it is filmed. No helium, no launch site, no chase.
Everything ships in one box. Families supply a laptop, eggs, a soda bottle, a flashlight and milk, a freezer and some stairs.
Every option comes with a complete lesson plan. The difference is what ships in the box and how much your crew builds themselves.
| Item | Explorer$900Ages 8–12 | Cadet$700Ages 13 and up | Virtual$300Ages 8 and up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Latex sounding balloon | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Recovery parachute & flight line | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Insulated payload capsule | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Flight data logger (temperature, pressure, humidity) | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| APRS ham radio tracker (run by a licensed operator from your local ham club) | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Flight electronics | Ready-to-fly (pre-assembled) | Build-it-yourself (wire & program) | Build-it data logger (stairs & freezer tests) |
| Curriculum | 6 lessons | 8 lessons | 6 lessons |
| Printable worksheets | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Launch-day checklist | Illustrated | ✓ | — |
| Flight prediction & recovery planning | Walkthrough | Run your own | — |
| Data-analysis unit with graphing | —Data activities | ✓ | — |
| Flight video + real flight data | — | — | ✓Coming soon: emailed once our flight is filmed |
| At-home experiments: vacuum-jar balloon, cloud in a bottle, egg drop | — | — | ✓ |
| Mission certificate & flight poster | — | — | ✓ |
| 30 mission patch stickers | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Printed Mission Brief & lesson guide | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Best for | Younger crews who want to focus on the flight and the science | Teens and adults who want to build, predict and analyze it all | Families and classes with no launch site: no helium, no chase |
| Buy | Buy Explorer | Buy Cadet | Buy Virtual |
Explorer and Cadet each fly one real balloon. The Virtual Mission uses our own mission flight (not filmed yet; we email the video and data once it is); families supply a laptop, eggs, a soda bottle, a flashlight and milk, a freezer and some stairs.
Explorer and Cadet kits and every Launch Day are tracked with APRS, the amateur (ham) radio tracking network. Each flight is a chance for kids to meet real radio operators, see ham radio at work, and maybe earn a license of their own.
The payload's tracker sends its position on the 2 meter amateur radio band. Receiving stations pass it on, so you can follow the flight live on aprs.fi.
Transmitting on amateur radio requires an FCC license. A licensed operator from your local ham radio club sets up the tracker with their callsign and runs it on launch day.
Use the ARRL club finder to find a club in your area. Reach out and invite them to be your launch partner.
The entry-level Technician license is a multiple-choice exam that kids and parents can study for together. Free practice is at hamstudy.org.
Each stage has its own activity, so everyone in your group has a role, not just the launch crew.
Your crew assembles the payload capsule, mounts the logger and tracker, and weighs everything. Your local ham club's licensed operator sets up the tracker.
Run a flight prediction from the forecast winds and plan where the payload is likely to land.
Fill, tie off, and release using the launch checklist, with everyone on a job.
Follow the balloon live on aprs.fi as its ham radio tracker reports from the tropopause and into the stratosphere.
A chase team drives to the landing site and brings the payload home.
Download the data, graph the flight, and write the mission report.
Each month we travel to one group for an in-person balloon launch at your location. Your family, youth group, club, school, or company gets the whole day: we mentor your group by video call in the weeks before the launch, then bring the kit, run the launch with you, and lead the chase and recovery.
One group per month. At checkout you choose Explorer or Cadet and tell us your location. We then set the exact date together on your first mentoring call. If weather grounds the flight, we move it to the next suitable day.
Space Mariner comes from Tooele County, Utah, and the classroom of Clint Thomsen, a career and technical education teacher with the Tooele County School District.
Since 2016, Clint's students have built radio trackers and sent them to the stratosphere on high-altitude balloons, launching from the old Wendover airfield, Dugway Proving Ground, Box Elder County and Skull Valley. Their 2023 balloon burst at 107,000 feet, and getting it back meant a 10-mile round-trip hike into the Cedar Mountains, following the payload's radio signals.
Ham radio has been part of it from the start. Clint is a licensed General-class ham operator (W7CBL). His students' payloads have sent their telemetry home by ham radio, and the 2023 flight was tracked with APRS, LoRa and a satellite beacon. In April 2024, after nearly three years of work, Clint led a live ham radio contact between Tooele County students and an astronaut on the International Space Station, with help from the Bridgerland and West Desert amateur radio clubs. Seven students earned their own ham licenses along the way. He has since served as an education mentor for ARISS, the program behind these contacts, helping a school in Providence, Utah prepare for its own in 2026.
Space Mariner puts that same approach into a box: real flight hardware, a local ham radio club, and kids running the mission. Now families, youth groups and schools anywhere in the US can fly one too.
“There's nothing more fulfilling as a teacher than to see a passion that you have conveyed and received by a student.”
Your balloon kit gets you flying. Add-on missions work with either edition (Payload Engineering is best for ages 13 and up), each with its own hardware and a 3–5 lesson guide for a new science or engineering focus. Add them when you buy a kit, or buy one on its own. They ship as each one is released.
Measure how temperature, pressure, and humidity change through each layer of the atmosphere.
Send live data from the payload to a ground station and learn how the signal gets there.
Design, test, and fly an original experiment under real weight and power limits.
Capture the curve of the Earth and the black sky above it from the edge of space.
Every Buy and Reserve button opens a secure Stripe checkout page. You choose quantities and add-ons there, pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, and get an email receipt.
High-altitude balloon launches depend on wind, cloud cover, precipitation, and airspace conditions. Space Mariner decides whether conditions are safe on the scheduled Launch Day. If they are not, the launch moves to the next suitable day we agree on together, at no extra charge. Space Mariner is not responsible for delays, cancellations, lost time, travel costs, or other losses caused by weather or other conditions outside our control.
Kits must be assembled, launched, tracked, and recovered by following the included mission guide. Space Mariner is not responsible for damage, injury, loss of equipment or data, or failed flights caused by user error, including incorrect assembly, overfilling or underfilling the balloon, modified hardware, ignored instructions, or unsafe recovery attempts.
Every flight is different. Altitude, flight time, landing location, and data quality are not guaranteed, and a payload may land somewhere it cannot be safely recovered. Figures on this site are typical values, not promises.
You are responsible for following all federal, state, and local rules that apply to your flight, including FAA regulations for unmanned free balloons, and for getting permission to launch from and recover on any property. Never try to recover a payload from power lines, trees, roads, water, or private land without permission. Children must be supervised by an adult at all times.
To the fullest extent allowed by law, Space Mariner's total liability for any claim related to a kit, add-on, mentoring, or Launch Day is limited to the amount you paid for that item. Space Mariner is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages.
Launch activities take place outdoors and involve lifting gas, moving vehicles during recovery, and uneven terrain. By placing an order or attending a Launch Day, you accept these risks for yourself and for any minors in your care, and you agree to these terms.
