Click on the image and feel the magic. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio on EVA outside the International Space Station, August 15, 2007. Visit the NASA Human Spaceflight Image Gallery for more information.

Those of you following this blog know that a core philosophy I embrace is that science education—indeed all education—should be about exploration owned by the learner, and as teachers and parents our charge is to light their way. It is something I believe deeply.

I’ve had the distinct honor of sharing that philosphy this past year with thousands of educators at conferences, e.g., the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) National Conference. In order to reach an even wider audience, I’m grateful that John Boswell at Symphony of Science was able to turn my thoughts and words at NSTA into a music video We’ve Got to Be That Light. How he took a guy speaking in the front of an audience and turned it into something you’d want to upload to your music library is pretty magical. If you’ve not seen the music video yet, take a look. If you have seen it, and you’re a teacher that needs to decompress a bit over Thanksgiving and a shot in the arm before returning to work might help, take another look.

Those that preach have an obligation to put their words into practice. It’s the “put up or shut up” argument. If one complains about something, in this case the state of education, then either demonstrate a fix or don’t complain. So I’m listening … to myself. If education is about ownership in learning, then science education ought to be about ownership in science—experiences that allow students the ability to truly be scientists. And I firmly believe that if you give a 5th grader the ability to do real science, all you need do is gently guide, get out of the way … and be amazed.

So I created the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), a true STEM education initiative that is designed to immerse students in real science, and along the way, engage their entire community. In this context, there is another deeply held belief at work—it takes a community to educate a child and a network of communities to reach a generation.

I’ve been working on SSEP pretty intensely for the last 3 months with an incredible team at the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) and NanoRacks, and with the most amazing local teams of educators in communities across America. We began the program in June 2010, with two SSEP missions on the final two Space Shuttle flights where thousands of grade 5-14 students were engaged in real experiment design, over 1,000 student team proposals for experiments were received, and 27 experiments were selected and flew—one for each of the participating communities. We then set our sights on routine operations on the International Space Station (ISS). The program transition to ISS was completed by the beginning of August 2011 when we announced the third SSEP flight opportunity “SSEP Mission 1 to ISS” and 12 communities came aboard giving over 40,000 students the ability to participate. Student Team proposals are due next week, and we expect nearly 1,000. Pretty cool.

Then on November 15, 2011, we released the national announcement of opportunity for SSEP Mission 2 to ISS, distributing it to 54,000 superintendents and principals. I wanted to share the announcement with you (it’s provided below) in the hope that someone reading this post might say, “hey I want my community to be part of this!” If you do, you can send me an email, or hey, call me: 301-395-0770. We’d like to see 100,000 students given the ability to be real scientists as part of Mission 2 to ISS.

Best wishes,

Dr. Jeff

For Immediate Release

November 15, 2011
Program Description Video Clip
Download a PDF of this Press Release

92 Schools in 12 U.S. Communities Participating in Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 1 to the International Space Station (ISS)

Announcing New Flight Opportunity – SSEP Mission 2 to ISS

Washington, D.C. – The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE), in partnership with NanoRacks LLC, has selected 12 communities across the U.S. to participate in the third Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) flight opportunity – SSEP Mission 1 to the International Space Station (ISS) – reflecting involvement by 92 elementary, middle and high schools. The Center and NanoRacks are also proud to announce the fourth SSEP flight opportunity, Mission 2 to ISS.

Launched in June 2010, SSEP immerses typically 300 students across a community in real scientific research of their own design, using a highly captivating spaceflight opportunity on ISS, America’s newest National Laboratory. The community-focused program is open to schools and school districts serving grade 5 through 12 students, 2- and 4-year colleges and universities, informal science education organizations, and internationally through the Center’s new Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education.

Mirroring the proposal process for professional researchers, each participating community solicits proposals for a microgravity experiment from their students, with student teams vying for use of a real research mini-laboratory reserved to fly for their community. A suite of programs leverages the experience to engage the entire community, embracing a Learning Community Model for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education.

SSEP is a true STEM education program, with students proposing experiments over a wide range of biological and physical science disciplines, and designed to the technology and engineering constraints imposed by the mini-laboratory and flight operations to and from Earth orbit.

The SSEP Mission 1 communities are providing 41,200 students the opportunity to participate, and nearly 1,000 student team proposals are expected. The 12 communities are in California, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, and the District of Columbia. Half of the communities participated in SSEP on the final two flights of the Space Shuttle. The Mission 1 experiment design competition takes place October through December 2011, with the 12 selected flight experiments scheduled to fly to ISS on Soyuz 30 in March 2012.

Mission 1 Communities:
1. San Marino, California
2. West Hills, California
3. Hartford, Connecticut
4. Washington, DC
5. Lake County, Indiana
6. Ida County, Iowa
7. Charles County, Maryland
8. Fitchburg, Massachusetts
9. Pleasanton and Norris, Nebraska
10. Cincinnati, Ohio
11. Houston, Texas
12. El Paso, Texas

“SSEP is designed to empower the student as scientist, and within the real-world context of science. Student teams design a real experiment, propose for a real flight opportunity, experience a formal proposal review process, and go through a NASA flight safety review. They even have their own science conference, where they are immersed in their community of researchers”, said Dr. Jeff Goldstein, creator of SSEP and NCESSE Center Director. “The 2011 SSEP conference was held at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, which was a fantastic setting for the next generation of America’s scientists and engineers – some just 10 years old – to report on their experiment results. SSEP is about introducing real science to our children.”

The first two SSEP flight opportunities on the final flights of Space Shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis (STS-134 and STS-135), engaged 27 communities, providing a combined 30,700 grade 5-14 students in 101 schools the opportunity to participate; 1,027 student team proposals were received; and 27 experiments were selected and flown on the Shuttles – one for each participating community.

New SSEP Mission 2 Flight Opportunity:
SSEP Mission 2 to ISS includes an experiment design competition March though May 2012, with selected flight experiments flying to ISS aboard Soyuz 32 in September 2012 – a great way to start the new school year. All communities interested in participating in Mission 2 should contact the Center as soon as possible.

SSEP is the first pre-college STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education program that is both a U.S. national initiative and implemented as an on-orbit commercial space venture. SSEP is enabled through NanoRacks LLC, which is working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.

If interested in SSEP for your community, go to: SSEP Home Page

Other Links of Interest:
SSEP 3-Page Overview PDF
SSEP Participating Communities
Student Flight Experiments on Final Two Space Shuttle Flights
SSEP In the News
Program Impact from Teachers, Students, and Community Leaders
SSEP Conference, Team from Zachary, LA, National Air and Space Museum

About NCESSE
The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) creates and oversees national initiatives addressing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, with a focus on earth and space. Programs are designed to provide an authentic window on science as a human endeavor. Central objectives of the Center’s programs are to help ensure a scientifically literate public and a next generation of U.S. scientists and engineers – both of which are of national importance in an age of high technology. NCESSE is a Project of the Tides Center. http://ncesse.org

About NanoRacks, LLC
NanoRacks LLC was formed in 2009 to provide quality hardware and services for the U.S. National Laboratory onboard the International Space Station. NanoRacks now has two research platforms onboard the U.S. National Laboratory that can house plug and play payloads using the Cube-Sat form factor. Our current signed customer pipeline of over 50 payloads, including domestic and international educational institutions, research organizations and government organizations, has propelled NanoRacks into a leadership position in understanding the emerging commercial market for low-earth orbit utilization. Visit us at www.nanoracks.com and @nanoracks

Media Contact
Dr. Jeff Goldstein, Center Director, NCESSE
301-395-0770 jeffgoldstein@ncesse.org

Click on the image and feel the magic. The International Space Station (ISS) with Endeavour (STS-135) docked. 16 SSEP Experiments are aboard. ISS dwarfs Endeavour.

As Center Director for the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, I’m proud to share a new program opportunity for real student research in orbit—for students in your community. The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), which we launched in June 2010, saw 27 student-designed flight experiments on STS-134 and STS-135, the culmination of 31,000 students engaged, and 1,027 student team proposals for experiments. For the past month, we’ve been working hard to reconfigure the program for routine operations on America’s newest National Laboratory—the International Space Station. Today, we just announced the opportunity! I wanted to let folks know about it here, and invite you to think about this program for YOUR community:)

-dj

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Private Sector Effort Offers Real Research Opportunity for Grade 5-16 Students aboard International Space Station, 50,000 Expected to Participate

Next Phase of Bold New STEM Education Program that Attracted National Attention with Student Experiments on Final Flights of Shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis, and Provided Participation to 30,700 Students

THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE EDUCATION (NCESSE) ANNOUNCES AN IMMEDIATE AND HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY FOR COMMUNITIES ACROSS THE U.S. TO PARTICIPATE IN THE FIRST STUDENT SPACEFLIGHT EXPERIMENTS PROGRAM (SSEP) MISSION TO AMERICA’S NATIONAL LABORATORY IN SPACE—THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION (ISS). THE PROGRAM IS ALSO OPEN TO ISS PARTNER NATIONS.

SSEP is a keystone Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education program launched as a U.S. National initiative in June 2010. More broadly, SSEP is about a commitment to student ownership in exploration, to science as journey, and to the joys of learning. For school districts—even individual schools—it provides an opportunity to implement a systemic, high caliber, and historic STEM education program that is tailored to a community’s strategic needs in STEM education.

Deadline for Letters of Commitment from Interested Communities:
September 15, 2011

Jump to: SSEP MIssion 1 on the International Space Station Announcement of Opportunity

The SSEP on-orbit research opportunity is enabled through NanoRacks LLC, which is working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.

Photocaption: Vehicle Asembly Building (VAB) during the final mission of the Space Shuttle program (STS-135).  Photo by Eric S. Ackerman. CLICK FOR ZOOM

This past year has been a humbling experience for me, the staff of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and the thousands of students and teachers in the 27 communities participating in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP). Enabled by a Space Act Agreement between NASA and NanoRacks, LLC, we’ve all had the adventure of a lifetime. We’ve had the distinct honor of being part of history, and part of the 30 year legacy of the United States Space Shuttle program. The Space Shuttle, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—both national treasures—stand for what is a fundamental regarding the nature of our existence—our need to know, to question, to push the boundaries of what is familiar, and to broaden our understanding of ourselves. Anyone witnessing the final Shuttle launch on July 8 at Kennedy Space Center (I was lucky enough) could not help but be overwhelmed by what we have done as a nation of spacefarers, and realize that the dawn of a new era is at hand. To all those that are participating in SSEP, you need to know that you are helping to blaze a trail into that new era, and there has been no bigger supporter of your achievements than NASA. With the 27 experiments aboard Endeavour and Atlantis, selected from over 1,000 student team proposals, you, the next generation, are the link between a celebrated past and a future in space exploration that is only now being written. And this remarkable journey we’ve been on together? It has really been about celebrating the past, embracing the present, and inspiring the future. Isn’t that what learning and exploration are all about?

To all the men and women that have dedicated their lives to the exploration of space, and to knowing Earth’s place in a greater cosmos, thank you. Know that your legacy lives on in myriad education programs like SSEP that give voice to the dreams of the next generation so that they may take their rightful place at the helm of the human race. It is only fitting … for the journey is written in our genes, and all the countless thousands that built Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station were children once that dared to dream.

I am very very proud to pass along that NASA has again honored the communities participating in SSEP, this time with feature articles for the 11 communities aboard STS-135. I have provided the links below.

I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to NASA, and to three individuals that have provided unwavering support for SSEP: Mark Severance, International Space Station National Laboratory Education projects manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center; Leland Melvin, Associate Administrator for Education, NASA Headquarters; and James Stofan, Deputy Assistant Administrator for Integration, NASA Education, NASA Headquarters. I would also like to extend a very special thanks to Flint Wild, NASA Portal Associate Editor, NASA Education; Kathy Forsythe, Content Manager/NASA Education Web Team, NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center; and Jessica Nimon, Research Communications Specialist, ISS Program Science, NASA Johnson Space Center for overseeing the feature story development for the features posted on two main landing pages at the NASA Education Portal and also on the ISS Research News page. Finally a special thank you to Kristina Brink, Lead for K-12 Projects, NASA Kennedy Space Center; and Annette Dittmer, NASA Exchange Manager, NASA Kennedy Space Center, for making the KARS Park launch experiences for STS-134 and STS-135 something that the 600 combined attendees will never forget.

I am very much looking forward to the next chapter of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, and its promise to inspire and engage hundreds of thousands of student scientists, starting with SSEP Mission 1 to the International Space Station (ISS). We are on-boarding participating communities now for a Fall 2011 real experiment design competition engaging hundreds to thousands of grade 5-12 students across each community, selection of a flight experiment for each community by mid-December 2011, and the flight experiments integrated into the SSEP Mission 1 Payload and ferried to ISS aboard Soyuz 30 on April 1 ,2012.

See if your community might want to be part of the adventure! For more information, see the new SSEP Mission 1 Critical TImeline page, and don’t hesitate to Contact me. I will move heaven and Earth to try and find funding for any community that wants to come aboard. We found funding for 21 of the 27 communities that participated on the final flights of Endeavour and Atlantis, and engaged a combined 29,700 students.

-dj

Links to the SSEP on STS-135 Feature Articles at NASA.gov—

For Student main landing page – In the Spotlight area
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/index.html

For Educators main landing page – Educator Features and Articles area
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html

STS-135 Educator Resources page – second item
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/sts135-index.html

International Space Station Research News page
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news.html

Direct URL
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/eleven-more.html

The SSEP on-orbit research opportunity is enabled through NanoRacks LLC, which is working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.

Photocaption: Endeavour (STS-134) and ISS as seen by ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli in a Soyuz capsule.

We were eagerly awaiting Endeavour’s return to Earth on June 1. Student teams across the nation had experiments aboard. It was the culmination of a many months long process where 19,700 grade 5-12 students across America were given the opportunity to design experiments to be placed aboard Endeavour on her final flight, and they all felt like they were part of history.

It’s also been a very special program for me. It has been a labor of love (and one which has taken me away from another labor of love—this Blog.) I still remember sitting in that restaurant sketching out the program structure on a napkin. You know, napkins are pretty important tools for anyone who wants to craft vision. I suspect some of the greatest accomplishments of the human race started on napkins. I wouldn’t be surprised if John F. Kennedy one day sat down for lunch with his advisors and sketched out a plan to land a man on the Moon before the decade was out. Then that historic napkin was likely left on the table, and tossed in a trash can by an unsuspecting waiter. But I’m willing to bet there was a napkin.

Well Endeavour landed and there was euphoria in the participating communities. We even had a live video feed from the payload processing lab where technicians were harvesting the precious experiments (and we’ll have it again for the 11 experiments on STS-135.)

Then the stunning video below was broadcast to the world. I am so proud to say that aboard Endeavour in this video are the 16 experiments of Our Center’s Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP). It offers a dramatic new perspective of this keystone U.S. National STEM education initiative that is engaging tens of thousands of grade 5-12 students in real science on orbit—their science.

Imagine watching this video, as a member of a 5th grade student team with your science experiment aboard Endeavour, that you designed, and it’s in orbit … right there! If that doesn’t inspire America’s next generation of scientists and engineers, and teachers of science across the nation, well, I’m not sure what will. And we’ve got 11 more experiments ready for launch on the final flight of Atlantis and of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program.
 

Truth be told, I wrote this post with another motivation in mind. It’s an invitation to you. How about … YOUR community coming aboard SSEP (yes YOU reading this). Normal program operations on the International Space Station (the big thing dwarfing the Shuttle in the video below) begin in Fall 2011. We’re a 501c3 non-profit, but this program does cost money. Yet I personally found funding for 21 of the 27 communities that are currently participating. And I promise you that I will work hard to get your community aboard too, as long as you can provide an appropriate implementation plan (I can walk you through that) and you have a coalition of the willing in terms of science educators and administrators.

Want to know more? SSEP was recently showcased at NASA.gov, along with feature articles from the participating communities, written by these communities. SSEP was also featured at the NASA International Space Station Research News webpage (that’s *RESEARCH* News). Remember that these students, maybe students in your community, are working as true scientists doing real research. You can also read a moving essay about what SSEP means to students, teachers, and families. You might also want to watch a video clip of me being interviewed about the program, and download a 2-page program overview as a PDF.

If you would like your community—300 to 3,200 grade 5-12 students, and students in 2-year and 4-year colleges—to come aboard the International Space Station for a true adventure in science on the high frontier, well I just dare you to contact me.

You’re also invited to follow along with breaking SSEP program news by subscribing to the SSEP National Blog at the SSEP main website.

Uploaded to YouTube by NASA Television

Newly released video shows the International Space Station together with the space shuttle, the vehicle that helped build the complex over the last decade. The video was shot by European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli from the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that undocked from the station on May 23. He, Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman were departing the station for a return to Earth after five months on the station. Nespoli documented the station from a distance of 600 feet as it was rotated 130 degrees.

Photo Caption: Space Shuttle Atlantis at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after arriving at Pad 39A on April 21, 2010, in preparation for flight STS-132. Click on the image to see Atlantis up close and personal.

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

This is it. The moment when the reality of loss truly begins to sink in. There are three flights of the space shuttle left, one for each of the remaining orbiters—Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavour. Currently scheduled for launch Friday, May 14, at 2:20 pm EDT, it is Atlantis’ time to soar one last time.

I will be posting these Teachable Moments for each of the remaining flights in the hope that parents and teachers will be able to tune in with our children, and savor the end of an era before the fleet is retired for museum display, forever standing in silent testimony to a remarkable human achievement of days gone by.

Follow the flight of Atlantis on NASA TV. You can also follow along with NASA”s STS-132 Launch Blog, which will begin coverage at 9:00 am EDT on May 14. Other NASA pages of interest:

Countdown Clock and Mission Description

STS-132 Image Gallery

STS-132 Mission Timeline

Here is a NASA video on the rollout of Atlantis to Pad 39-A

Below are previous posts at Blog on the Universe that powerfully address the science, history, and politics of human spaceflight—and can be used to help make the flight of Atlantis a Teachable Moment.

You might start with my February 6, 2010 post Shuttle Endeavour About to Blast Off on its Second to Last Mission, where I imagine what it will be like as the era of the Space Shuttle fades into history along with Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. It’s a powerful lesson for students not realizing they are living through a moment in history.

The Business Trip

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Weekly Challenge 4: You Want Me to Do What With a Bathroom Scale?

Essential question: Why are astronauts weightless in space?

TMN QuickLinks: Shuttle Atlantis in Orbit, Make it a Teachable Moment

Essential question: When a space shuttle launches—how heavy, how fast, how far?

Commentary on Blue Ribbon Panel Exploring NASA’s Strategic Options for Human Space Flight

Essential question: What should be the goal of human space flight?

Shuttle Atlantis Home! Prompts Me to Look at America’s Future … and I’m Troubled

Essential questions: Is the end of the space shuttle era a symptom of a larger problem for America? Are we taking science and technology education seriously?

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

Photocredit: NASA

Photo Caption: Stop what you are doing for a moment, just imagine the stark contrast between the surface of this world and the vacuum of space, and click on this photo for a Zoom. Be thankful on this 40th Earth Day for the veil of atmosphere above you, slender as it may be. NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft took this image of Mercury’s northern horizon on September 29, 2009, during its third and final flyby of Mercury, as we were covering the event live via Twitter from Mission Control in Columbia, Maryland. This image captures portions of Mercury we had never before seen—it represents history in the making. I invite you to read more about this image at the MESSENGER mission gallery.

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

This is crossposted at the Space Tweep Society Blog HERE.

FLASH: We interrupt the rhythm of your daily lives to bring you news from beyond Earth, from a tiny robot determined to take the human race to an alien world. Many of you tuned in September 2009 when Blog on the Universe provided live coverage of the MESSENGER spacecraft’s flyby of Mercury, the last gravity assist needed to get the spacecraft on course for Mercury orbital insertion in March 2011. We are now less than 11 months from that historic first—a spacecraft in orbit around the mysterious inner-most planet of our Solar System. You might want to bookmark the countdown clock.

Since last September 29, 7 months of our lives have been filled with a new school year, passage of seasons, and the ebb and flow of over 200 days. Meanwhile, dutifully navigating through the harsh environment of space, our little spacecraft has been steadily gaining on its rendezvous with destiny on March 18, 2011, under the watchful eyes of its extended family back on Earth—the MESSENGER Team. For this team, those 200+ days were filled with assessing data already broadcast to Earth from MESSENGER’s 3 prior flybys of the planet, and preparing for orbital insertion and on-orbit operations.

These engineers and scientists are the current generation of explorers on the frontiers of human exploration, and ought to be held up to our children as heroes and role models in the age of high technology—and at a time when America needs to step to the plate in science and technology education if we are to compete in the 21st century (you might want to read my related essay at Huffington Post.) So meet these heroes and role models—the Core Team, the Science Team, the Instrument Team, the Engineering Team, and the Mission Operations Team. Have a conversation with your kids, or if you are a teacher, have a conversation with your class about this remarkable group of folks. And to really get up close and personal, read how cool operations engineer Ray Espiritu got from his dream in middle school to being part of the MESSENGER mission. Read highlights on the lives of other MESSENGER Team members using the button at the bottom of the Highlights Page.

So now for some really exciting news sent to the entire MESSENGER Team via email on April 18, 2010, by Eric J. Finnegan, MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer. I have provided the text of Eric’s email without modification to give you a sense of the behind-the-scenes communication and spirit of teamwork that a group of folks like you and me is undertaking on behalf of humanity. We are now fully engaged in preparations for an encounter with another world—

Public Relations

This month, preparations for orbital operations came front and center, with a press release describing the extent of preparations the team is conducting, tactfully described by our Payload Operations Manager, Alice Berman.

Navigation 

It hasn’t taken long—the navigation and guidance and control teams have almost closed the gap on Mercury. Over the last month, the predicted trajectory of the satellite has been narrowed to within 1-sigma of the target. Through careful management of the solar array positions and body orientations, the predicted trajectory of the spacecraft is now less than 10 km off the b-plane aim point and less than one minute from the target arrival time needed for Mercury Orbit Insertion. The likelihood of future trajectory correction maneuvers is rapidly diminishing!

MOI Readiness

The operations and engineering teams continue to prepare for events before, during and after the Mercury Orbit Insertion maneuver. The team is considering all possible nominal and anomalous conditions to ensure a robust execution plan, thereby ensuring a successful Mercury insertion. The next milestone for the team will be a Fault Management Review, occurring on June 2. An independent team of reviewers will look over the teams preparation plans and provide any necessary recommendations to ensure successful execution of this mission critical event.

Orbital Operations Readiness

The engineering and operations teams have completed all of the detailed table top reviews covering the necessary flight operations for each of the spacecraft subsystems. Furthermore, all of the detailed discussion meetings between the mission operations team and the instrument engineers, to review the on-board and ground command procedures for orbital operations have been conducted. These series of meeting and reviews have resulted in a number of items that will need to be worked off over the next several months as the teams work towards the fall Orbital Readiness Review.

The science planning and mission operations teams completed the most recent week-in-the-life (WITL) test activity on 24 March. A team debriefing meeting was conducted to cover the activities and lessons learned from the five week exercise. This activity required the MESSENGER team to process two consecutive weeks of orbital operations in a real-time test-as-you-fly environment. The next WITL test activity will exercise four consecutive weeks of orbital operations. The kickoff meeting for this multi-week activity is scheduled for 21 April.

This month, the instrument scientists started the final verification activities for the planning functions of the MESSENGER Scibox software. on April 5, the latest configured version of the SciBox software was released allowing instrument scientists to start evaluation of the software-generated observation plan. Presentations of these observing plans by the instrument scientists to the cognizant Science Discipline Groups will commence at the end of April. In parallel with this activity, the operations and guidance and control teams are working their way through verification of the commanding functions of the Scibox software. Over 10 weeks of the 52 week orbital schedule have been processed by the G&C team using high fidelity dynamics simulations to ensure safe execution of the auto generated command sequences. The operations team has processed 5 weeks of orbital schedules though their command verification tools and vehicle state simulations, ensuring valid execution as well as identifying a few command efficiencies. Processing of the Scibox software generated command sequences will continue until all 52 weeks of scheduled science activities have been processed through the verification tools from both teams.

As a cumulative test of orbital readiness, the operations team kicked off planning activities for a full flight execution of orbital operations, to occur this summer. Current plans are to execute 1-2 weeks of orbital operations, in a cadence and manner that will be utilized during orbit. This activity will flight verify the end-to-end operations of the MESSENGER system.

There are many activities to complete before March 18, 2011, however all members of the MESSENGER team are now engaged and are working toward successful execution of orbital operations.

—Eric J. Finnegan MESSENGER Mission Systems Engineer

We wish the best to this remarkable group of folks for the continued success of MESSENGER, and stay tuned for mission updates, and extensive live coverage of MESSENGER orbital insertion. And readers, I invite you to put your thoughts to ‘paper’ with a comment below:)

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education oversees the MESSENGER Educator Fellowship Program and other MESSENGER education and public outreach activities, including the development of compendia of lessons on Solar System exploration and science, and programming for families at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Consider one of the Center’s programs for your community. Blog on the Universe is also one of the Center’s programs.

Photocredti: NASA

Photo Caption: Space Shuttle Discovery docked at the International Space Station on April 16,2010. The Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module is visible in Discovery’s payload bay. More at the NASA image library for STS-131.

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-131) is landing today. There are only 3 more flights of the Shuttle through September 2010 before retirement of the fleet. Watch Discovery’s landing on NASA TV with your class this morning.

Make this a teachable moment! Below are previous posts at Blog on the Universe that powerfully address the science, history, and politics of human spaceflight—and all of them embrace the notion that science education is about conceptual understanding at an emotional level.

I suggest you start with my February 6, 2010 post Shuttle Endeavour About to Blast Off on its Second to Last Mission, where I talk about what it will be like for all of us when the Space Shuttle stops flying, and the era of this remarkable machine fades into history. This is a very powerful lesson for students that may not realize they are living through a moment in history.

Finally, if you have memories of the Space Shuttle you’d like to share with other readers of this Blog, you’re invited to leave a comment below.

Posts to explore in class and at home—

The Business Trip

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Weekly Challenge 4: You Want Me to Do What With a Bathroom Scale?

Essential question: Why are astronauts weightless in space?

TMN QuickLinks: Shuttle Atlantis in Orbit, Make it a Teachable Moment

Essential question: When a space shuttle launches—how heavy, how fast, how far?

Commentary on Blue Ribbon Panel Exploring NASA’s Strategic Options for Human Space Flight

Essential question: What should be the goal of human space flight?

Shuttle Atlantis Home! Prompts Me to Look at America’s Future … and I’m Troubled

Essential questions: Is the end of the space shuttle era a symptom of a larger problem for America? Are we taking science and technology education seriously?

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

Photocredit: NASA

Photo Caption: Endeavour in orbit on flight STS-118, August 15, 2007. Click on the image for a breathtaking close up view. Read more about the image, and visit the STS-118 image gallery at NASA.

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE.

Follow the flight of Endeavour (STS-130) with liftoff currently scheduled for Monday, Feb. 8, 2010, 4:14 a.m. EST, at NASA’s Space Shuttle website.

A different kind of countdown has begun. It is now 2010. Before the next New Year’s celebration, the U.S. Space Shuttle program will be just a memory. Those that took pride in following along as this remarkable vehicle broke the surly bonds of Earth will surely feel they’ve lost a friend, and the pain of a very personal page turned forever will linger for quite some time. Those of you that follow news of the day as daily ritual, every so often hearing about a Space Shuttle blasting off or returning to Earth, will no longer experience that quick smile acknowledging pride in American leadership and technological prowess—at least not when it comes to human spaceflight.

The older generations world-wide will tell children what it was like to see a Shuttle blast off. It’s a sight that will be preserved in perpetuity on the internet, or whatever the internet will morph into. But in just 5 or 6 years we will be telling children about that time through which we lived when the Shuttle was flying—and these children will have no memory of it, for they will have been born in the post-shuttle age. Soon, the ancient history of Apollo will marry with the ancient history of the Space Shuttle for this new generation.

You and I are not alone in our living memories of Shuttle. Half the people alive today didn’t even know of a time when the Shuttle wasn’t flying, all of them born after April 1981 when John Young and Robert Crippen piloted Columbia into space as STS-1.

What’s the future for America in human spaceflight? The current long term plan for at least getting humans to low earth orbit—which is where you’ll find the International Space Station, a pretty hefty taxpayer investment—is to hand responsibility over to commercial companies with no current track record of getting even a single human there. So I’d like to put those companies on notice here. You’ve got big shoes to fill, and a spacefaring nation that is watching. You need to do us proud.

Since sometimes words are not enough, if you haven’t clicked on the photo above to see Endeavour up close in orbit, please do. And if you have, I know you’d like to click on it again—so be my guest.

Finally, if you have memories of the Space Shuttle you’d like to share with other readers of this Blog, you’re invited to leave a comment below.

Make Endeavour in orbit a teachable moment with your kids, or if you’re a teacher, with your class. Below are previous posts at Blog on the Universe that powerfully address the science, history, and politics of human spaceflight—and all of them embrace the notion that science education is about conceptual understanding at an emotional level.

The Business Trip

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Weekly Challenge 4: You Want Me to Do What With a Bathroom Scale?

Essential question: Why are astronauts weightless in space?

TMN QuickLinks: Shuttle Atlantis in Orbit, Make it a Teachable Moment

Essential question: When a space shuttle launches—how heavy, how fast, how far?

Commentary on Blue Ribbon Panel Exploring NASA’s Strategic Options for Human Space Flight

Essential question: What should be the goal of human space flight?

Shuttle Atlantis Home! Prompts Me to Look at America’s Future … and I’m Troubled

Essential questions: Is the end of the space shuttle era a symptom of a larger problem for America? Are we taking science and technology education seriously?

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

To Teachers:

How did I figure out how many people alive today were born after the first flight of the space shuttle?

Make this an interdisciplinary teachable moment. Here is the data for the current (2010) world population by age group, as well as the total world population. Have your students figure out how long ago the first Shuttle flew, and how many people were born since then.

Solution: Shuttle has been flying for 29 years (since April 1981). Adding together all those born in the last 29 years gives 3.5 billion people, which is a little more than half (51%) of the total world population.

Here’s an extension. Have your students figure out how many people have been born since the first landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969, during the flight of Apollo 11. And since your students weren’t around then, let them live that experience through the eyes of others (including me) using these earlier Blog on the Universe posts:

Yesterday’s Launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Brings Back Memories of Apollo 11

Essential question: What was it like to live through the flight of Apollo 11—the most historic voyage in the history of the human race?

SPECIAL POST: Where Were You During the Flight of Apollo 11? Remember and Share—

Essential question: What were the experiences of people that lived through the historic flight of Apollo 11?

An Apollo 11 Personal Story

Essential questions: What is it like to meet your hero? What is the nature of human exploration?

Photocredit: NASA

Photo Caption: Image taken September 29, 2009 by MESSENGER’s Narrow Angle Camera (NAC). The distance across the bottom of the image is 250 miles (410 km), which means the crater at lower left is about 80 miles (130 km) across! The crater’s appearance points to Mercury’s volcanic past—to a time when the crater was filled with lava and now only portions of the crater’s circular rim are visible. (Click on image for zoom.)

This post is a Teachable Moment in the News.

Remember the MESSENGER spacecraft we were all following back in September as it flew by Mercury? The little spacecraft that gave us all a scare during the September 29 flyby (hey little fella, don’t do that again) is day-by-day getting closer to orbital insertion on March 18, 2011. We’re now just 15 months away!

I promised to keep you all posted with new mission updates. My last was October 17, and there have been a bunch of things piling up to report. I could have just quietly inserted the new updates on the MESSENGER Mission Updates page here at the Blog, and snuck in a date change in the Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Box in the upper right corner above (your cue to look in upper right corner). But hey! When Time Magazine names a family member as one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009 (and by the way, we were number 11) YOU’VE JUST GOT TO CELEBRATE WITH AN OFFICIAL POST!

And a BIG thanks to Dr. Harri Vanhala, (another) cool astrophysicist here at the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, for feeding me all the updates information. Dr. Harri (to his fans) also manages the MESSENGER Educator Fellowship Program, and oversaw the development of the brand spanking new Mission Design curriculum package that will be available in Spring 2010. The package has lots of middle and high school lessons that engage students in the design process for a robotic spacecraft mission to another planet, and teachers—you’ll be able to download it lesson by lesson at no cost. Your tax dollars at work.

So I invite y’all (a shout out to my friends in Houston and Corpus Christi) to check out the MESSENGER Mission Updates page for a link to the official honor from Time Magazine, LOTS of new images of Mercury, a way cool podcast on the results of the September 29 flyby by Team Member Bob Hirshon of the American Assocation for the Advancement of Science, and a link for the NASA Teleconference which showcased the scientific findings from the flyby.

Keep Truckin’ MESSENGER. And you folks in the blogosphere—stay tuned right here.

Photocredit: NASA

Photo Caption: Atlantis blasts off from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, 2:28 p.m. EST, November 16, 2009.

This is a Teachable Moments in the News QuickLinks Post. It connects a news story with this Blog’s existing powerful library of Posts and Resource Pages. The cited Posts and Pages provide a deep understanding of concepts in the earth and space sciences relevant to the news story. Teachers—the Posts and Pages are also designed for use as lessons, allowing you to easily bring current science into the classroom as a teachable moment. Each cited Post is outlined in the Teachers Lesson Planner, which includes the Post’s essential questions, concepts, objectives, and math skills.

This is crossposted at the Huffington Post HERE.

A space shuttle has now lifted off from Kennedy Space Center 129 times. The flight of Atlantis that began on November 16 is also the 31^st to the International Space Station. After she returns to Earth, a space shuttle will clear the tower only 5 more times before the fleet—Discovery, Endeavour, and Atlantis—is retired in 2010. Atlantis is scheduled to go up only once more.

We take the technical aspects of shuttle flights for granted, even the shuttle flights themselves. But it’s a remarkable technological achievement that deserves both our reflection and awe. So let me help. Here’s what happened November 16 close to 2:30 pm EST, when folks on the west coast of the U.S. were thinking about where to go for lunch. East coasters were looking forward to the end of the work day. But down at Kennedy Space Center, a now famous clock was ticking.

Sitting at Pad 39A before launch, the orbiter Atlantis, its external tank, and the two solid rocket boosters weighed in at a combined 4,522,383 lbs. Let’s put that in familiar terms. That’s 2,261 TONS …. or about 1,300 cars (assuming the weight of a 2010 Toyota Camry V6) … or 30,000 average human adults. Yet only 6 human adults were aboard, waiting to leave our Earth. It’s something we humans have been able to do for less than 50 years. It’s worth noting that well over a billion of us alive today remember a time when we could not.

Pointing heavenward, Atlantis waited. At a height of 184 feet (56.1 m) she was a nearly 20-story-tall machine waiting for the clock to tick down to T=0. Just 6.6 seconds before T=0 the three main engines on the orbiter ignited. At T=0 the vehicle was explosively unattached from the Pad (you need to detach from the planet rather quickly), the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) ignited, and this massive, magnificent machine was set into motion …. up.

Imagine a 20 story building moving slowly down the street. Boy, that would be something to see. Imagine a 20 story building racing down the street at 60 miles an hour. Imagine a 20 story building accelerating ….. UP, and already traveling more than 60 miles per hour by the time it cleared the tower at Pad 39A—after traveling less than twice its height. The space shuttle does 0 to 60 mph (0 to 100 km/hr) in 5.5 seconds, not too impressive by racetrack standards. It does beat the 6.2 seconds for the 2010 Toyota Camry V6. But did I mention the shuttle is going UP, and it weighs as much as 1,300 Camrys? You’ve got to just step back from this and recognize what we’re talking about here.

And it keeps accelerating. The two solid rocket boosters separated 2 minutes after launch, when the vehicle was already at an altitude of about 24 miles (39 km). Just 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the shuttle was in a preliminary orbit at an altitude of 140 miles (225 km), and moving over 17,000 miles per hour (27,400 km/hr)—that’s fast enough to go from New York City to San Francisco (2570 miles; 4,140 km) in just under 7 minutes. It’s fast enough to go around the entire Earth every hour and a half. In more poetic terms, it’s fast enough for the astronauts to see a sunrise every 90 minutes.

As we count down the final flights of the space shuttle, I invite you to use Atlantis in orbit as a teachable moment with your kids, or if you are a teacher, with your class. Below are two previous posts at Blog on the Universe that ask a couple of cool questions: “How far is outer space?” and “Why are the astronauts weightless?” And if you missed it, here’s the launch of Atlantis on YouTube.

Weekly Challenge 4: You Want Me to Do What With a Bathroom Scale?

Essential question: Why are astronauts weightless in space?

The Business Trip

Essential questions: How far is ‘Outer Space’? What does this imply for the thickness of Earth’s atmosphere?

Teachers and Parents: make sure to read about The Teacher’s Toolbox which is designed to help you put this Blog to work for your class and your children. If you’re new to Blog on the Universe read About this Blog.

Photocredit: NASA