A business founded by two Teesside University aerospace engineering students, which plans to launch the UK’s first civilian space mission, has won a major start-up competition.

StratoBooster (www.stratobooster.com) was named as having the ‘highest growth potential’ and being ‘one to watch’ in the 2018 If We Can You Can (IWCYC) challenge.

The company, based at Teesside University’s start-up incubator Launchpad, was started by Andrew Dunn and Ben Massey, who are both in their final year.

It was originally spun out of a student-led space exploration project — TU2Space — and is working on designing and building a small satellite launch platform.

Its StratoBooster system will be lifted to 30km by a meteorological balloon before detaching and using a rocket booster to put its payload into orbit.

Its payload will include tiny satellites (known as femto-satellites) that can be used by researchers in businesses, schools and universities.

Now in its 10th year, the IWCYC Challenge aims to publicise start-up businesses and connect them with the wider North East business community.

As a result of winning the competition, the pair will be given support to grow their business, including mentoring and a trip to a European conference or expo.

Mr Dunn said: “It was fantastic to win this competition, and it’s a real vote of confidence to know that people are interested in what you are doing.”