Announcements

Get involved with the Plant the Moon Challenge!

There are two upcoming events we wanted to make sure you had on your calendars:

1. Spring Season Closing Symposium, May 15, 6pm Eastern Time: open to the public, we are encouraging students, teachers, and partners to join in to recognize and celebrate the best in show winners. Members of the Science Advisory Board will be highlighting key aspects of each Best-in-Show award winner’s project and sharing other insights from this season’s program. It would be great if you can join in on the celebration.

2. Spring Season Review Meeting, June 7th, 3pm Eastern Time: please hold this time on your calendar for our post-season review meeting where we will be going over the Evaluation Report that will be shared with each partner in late May and discussing overall feedback on the program. Please join us to review this information and get your questions answered about what happened with the spring season. We will also discuss updates, enhancements, and timelines for the Fall 2023 season.

Plant the Moon Challenge is open to all students and educators. In the past we have had over 22 teams participating, as well as 172 K-12th youth participants.

U.S. and Canadian National Model STEM Education Program Opportunity  

Announcing the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) 20th Flight Opportunity – SSEP Mission 18 to the International Space Station, Starting September 2023

2023-24 Academic Year Opportunity for 2- and 4-year Colleges and Universities to Engage 30+ Students (Reflecting at Least 10 Teams) in Real Microgravity Experiment Design and Proposal Writing, with One Experiment at Your Institution Selected for Operation By Astronauts on the International Space Station

STEM Project-Based Learning Through Immersion in an Authentic Research Experience on the High Frontier

TIME CRITICAL: interested undergraduate institutions are directed to inquire about the program as soon as possible, and no later than (extended to) May 15, 2023

MILESTONE DATES:
Experiment Design and Proposal Writing Phase: September 1 – November 3, 2023 (9 weeks)

Selection of Your Community’s Flight Experiment: December 15, 2023

SpaceX Launch of Your Experiment to the International Space Station: Late Spring 2024

Ferry Flight Return to Earth: Launch + 4 to 6 weeks

SSEP National Conference, likely at Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC: early July 2024

PROGRAM OVERVIEW:
The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education announces Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 18 to the International Space Station. This opportunity gives students across your institution the ability to design and propose microgravity experiments to fly in low-Earth orbit on the International Space Station (ISS). Experiments are designed to real world engineering and technology constraints imposed by the flight certified mini-lab that must be used, and the nature of flight operations to and from Low Earth Orbit. One experiment at each institution will be selected to fly to ISS on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in FL. Your experiment will launch from historic pad 39A, the same pad from which all Apollo missions to the Moon launched, and 82 Space Shuttle missions. Astronauts aboard ISS will operate the experiment 4-6 weeks before it is returned to Earth and to your student flight team for analysis. SSEP is not a simulation. We are truly inviting your institution and students to be part of America’s Space Program.

A college or university can also engage hundreds of students in mission patch art and design competitions – as possibly outreach to local school districts, with two patches selected to fly with the flight experiment. SSEP is therefore an authentic STEAM initiative. We invite institutions to use their mission patch competitions to also celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon missions, and humans returning to the Moon in likely 2024 with Artemis.

An important consideration – the expectation is that faculty mentors in a participating 2- or 4-year college or university will engage at least 30 undergraduate students over 9 weeks of experiment design and proposal writing spanning September 1 through November 3, 2023. Students will form into at least 10 teams, each team designing a microgravity experiment in a science discipline of their choice. Each team writes a formal proposal to make the case for why their experiment should be selected for flight to ISS. Your students will be engaged in a very real research proposal competition, focusing on technical writing, mirroring the experiences of professional scientists and engineers. A national review board meeting in Washington, DC, will select the flight experiment for your institution, and do the same for each of the other Mission 18 participating communities.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) provides a fully authentic research competition as a STEM Project Based Learning experience. Launch of the Mission 18 flight experiments is currently projected for Spring 2023. Mission 18 occurs across the 2023-24 academic year.

For program details, and how to explore this opportunity for your community, carefully read the SSEP Home Page, which provides a comprehensive summary of the program: HERE

To explore undergraduate participation in SSEP Missions to date, visit HERE

Check out the newly released annual report “NASA STEM Engagement Highlights 2022”! This is the third annual report, and this provides a vivid snapshot in words and pictures of the powerful experiences and opportunities NASA creates through STEM. Feel free to share around!

LINK PROVIDED HERE

ISGC Student Hands-On Spotlight: Cardinal Space Mining Club at Iowa State University

The Cardinal Space Mining Club is a student organization affiliated with Iowa State University. As a group they annually compete in the NASA Lunabotics challenge where teams are tasked with designing and building a robot that can operate in a simulated lunar environment. This year, the competition is virtual and therefore a video of this year’s team robot “Atlas” doing the necessary competition tasks can be watched here

This photo is a small group of the team outside of Linden Hall in the sand volleyball court to test this year’s competition robot and film the Proof of Life video for the NASA Lunabotics Challenge. Pictured from l-r: Isaac Petersen, Alex McFadden, Nathan Butler, Nathan Tanner, Alex Warling, Gustave Abagge-Luzzi with robot “Atlas”.

Cardinal Space Mining Club Website