A BLAENAU Ffestiniog school has retrieved their space-bound camera a staggering nine-months after it first went missing.

Last July Ysgol Y Moelwyn hit new heights after successfully launching their very own space capsule.

Year 9 students built and designed the capsule which they attached to a weather balloon and launched.

Due to flight paths and wind direction, the school team deployed the space capsule from Rhaeadr in Powys.

The design was deemed a ‘flyaway success’ as the balloon reached an altitude of 30,000 metres before popping due to atmospheric pressure and parachuting safely down into a farm near Blackpool.

The capsule was collected a day later by Ysgol y Moelwyn geography teacher and organiser, Gareth Davies.

However the camera which was attached to the capsule had gone missing.

Amazingly the device, and the videos it had captured, has now been retrieved intact after spending the last nine months buried deep in a bale of hay.

The footage includes sweeping views of North Wales, capturing the magnificent Llyn Peninsula and even Aberystwyth.

Mr Davies said the schoolchildren were “properly chuffed” to retrieve their hard-core Polaroid XS100 camera.

He said: “It was amazing, Karen Sacker, the farmer’s wife whose land we fell onto, got in touch with us on St David’s day to tell us they’d found the camera, how brilliant is that?”

“I was gobsmacked to be honest, I’d given up on seeing it again after all this time.

“There’s 45 minutes showing the balloon’s ascent to about 10,000 metres I would guess.

“Then the camera gets too cold and stops working, we know the balloon would have popped at about 30,000 metres so it’s great to hold something that’s actually been in space.

“Once the camera warms up it starts recording again just in time to see a tractor run over it and wrap it up in a bale of hay, it’s incredible it still works.

“The kids have all seen the footage and they’re amazed by it."

Mr Davies plans to use the footage and data from the capsule to help teach his classes about map-reading and weather systems.

Ysgol Y Moelwyn pupils are hoping to release another two balloons this summer from Blaenau Ffestiniog.