NOVA21 had a special guest on board the flight: Wee Rex from Dinosaur Comics! He’s an adorable fluffy squishy stuffed T-Rex.

We mounted him on a couple of sticks of balsa wood to the payload containing JOEY-M and the cameras:

Then we sent him up, getting a ton of good photos:

He got to approximately 28km altitude before the balloon popped and NOVA21 descended by parachute.

We put together a time lapse video of the whole flight:

It’s pretty cool! Ryan North, creator of Dinosaur Comics, said:

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would ever watch T-Rex go into space.This has made my LIFE — Ryan North (@ryanqnorth) March 30, 2012

Success!