Recently, a group of school students in Canada asked the question: do Epi-Pens work in space? These are epinephrine-loaded injectors used to help people with allergies survive a severe attack.

To get an answer, the class at St Brother André Elementary School worked with NASA, the University of Ottawa, and the non-profit Cubes in Space program to launch some Epi-Pens on suborbital flights aboard a rocket and a high-altitude balloon. The result? Post-flight analysis showed that the pens lost their efficacy in space. It was a surprise to NASA as well as to the students.

The experiment was one of many suborbital projects that have been hoisted aloft over the years. These experiments are created and flown by space agencies, companies, educational institutions, and other groups.

Their work shows that not only is suborbital science alive and well, but it's providing important results across a range of sciences. And, in the aftermath of recent shoot-downs of unknown balloons after the Chinese floated one over North America, it's important to know that balloons, as well as rockets and other launch vehicles, are big players in suborbital research for scientific purposes.

About suborbital space flight

Suborbital spaceflight is exactly what it says, flights that go up to suborbital space, but do not go into orbit around Earth. Each mission can reach outer space (that is, they get to or slightly surpass the von Kármán line at 100 kilometers above sea level). While there the vehicle spends a few minutes at apogee before returning. Those brief moments in space flight provide microgravity environments where researchers can deploy experiments in near-spaceflight conditions.