A UNIQUE £1 million flight platform to spearhead a manned balloon ascent to the edge of space has been carefully tested... by throwing it into the sea off Weymouth.

Bincleaves-based QinetiQ - Europe's largest research and development organisation - has been responsible not only for sponsoring the 132,000ft bid but also for providing technological support for many of the systems and structure of the platform.

It also provided a testing service for the platform for the QinetiQ 1 project. This hopes to take two men to the edge of space beneath a balloon, which is seven times higher than Nelson's Column, some time between July 1 and September 20, weather permitting.

Pilots Andy Elson and Colin Prescot will depend on pressurised suits and the flight deck for their lives.

They will be seated on the open deck for their 25-mile high journey with temperatures as low as minus 70 degrees Centigrade.

When they descend to splash down in the Atlantic after their eight to 12-hour flight they must be sure that the flight deck can take the impact, so yesterday's stability and splashdown tests in Portland Harbour were vital.

QinetiQ project manager Terry Gardiner said: "We needed to know that the platform floated, that it was stable and that it was structurally sound so that when it lands in the Atlantic after the flight it will not break up."

Tests included a simulated controlled landing under a balloon and a simulated emergency landing under parachutes.

Stability tests were a great success with the platform proving so stable that it had to be pulled before turning over. Data from the capsize will enable the QinetiQ 1 team to judge how weight should be distributed together with what its water buoyancy character is.

QinetiQ flight director Alan Noble said waves would not be a problem and he described the stability tests as "pretty successful".

Final tests used a giant 100ft crane to first drop the flight platform into the sea from six to 10 feet in the air simulating a normal splashdown and then from 15-20ft which provided a splashdown at a much faster rate than the balloon's expected descent.

Mr Noble said the platform, weighing nearly one-and-a-half tonnes, successfully passed both drop tests.