A New U.S. National STEM Initiative for Grades 5-16
to inspire the next generation
of America’s scientists and engineers

News Milestones from the SSEP National Blog—

April 29, 2012: NEW FLIGHT OPPORTUNITY—Mission 3 to ISS for Fall 2012  Go to Post
Watch: Video Clip describing SSEP        Download: Press Release PDF
Download: 3-page Program Overview (MS Word)

3/13/12: SSEP Honored to Welcome 11 Communities Aboard Mission 2 to ISS Go to Post
1/5/12: SSEP Mission 1 to ISS Experiments Selected to Fly in March 2012 Go to Post
11/15/11: Communities Accepted for Mission 1 to ISS, NEW Mission 2 Opportunity Go to Post
7/14/11: NASA Honors SSEP Communities Flying on STS-135 Go to Post
5/27/11: Selection of SSEP Flight Experiments for Final Space Shuttle Flight Go to Post
5/27/11: NASA’s International Space Station Program Office Showcases SSEP Go to Post
5/16/11: Endeavour Blasts off with Aspirations of Thousands of Student Scientists Go to Post
4/27/11: Student Spaceflight Experiments Program is featured by NASA at nasa.gov Go to Post
For all news, Jump to the National Blog

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The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), launched June 2010 by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in partnership with NanoRacks, LLC, is a remarkable U.S. national Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education initiative that gives typically 300 to 1,000 students across a community the ability to design and propose real experiments to fly in low Earth orbit, first aboard the final flights of the Space Shuttle, and then on the International Space Station—America’s newest National Laboratory.

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 tailored to community need.

SSEP is about immersing and engaging
students and their teachers in real science
—on the high frontier—so that students
are given the chance to be scientists
—and experience science firsthand.

Important note: SSEP is not designed for an individual class or a small number of students in a community. Implementing SSEP for an appropriate-sized student audience is straightforward, and we can show you how.

Each community participating in SSEP conducts a local Flight Experiment Design Competition with student teams vying for an experiment slot reserved just for their community in a real research mini-laboratory scheduled to fly in low Earth orbit. Your design competition—from program start, to experiment design, to submission of proposals by your student teams—runs a minimum of 8 weeks. Students can design experiments in diverse fields, including: seed germination, crystal growth, physiology of microorganisms and life cycles (e.g. bacteria), cell biology and growth, food studies, and studies of micro-aquatic life. Content resources for teachers and students support foundational instruction on science in microgravity and experimental design. A suite of SSEP program elements—the Community Program—leverages the flight experiment design competition to engage the entire community, embracing a Learning Community Model for STEM education, and allows the experience to be celebrated with national, even global audiences.

The program is open to 5 categories of community, which provides a great deal of flexibility in implementing SSEP at the local level:

• Pre-College (the core focus for SSEP) in the U.S., (grades 5-12), with a participating school district—even an individual school—providing a stunning, real, on-orbit RESEARCH opportunity to their upper elementary, middle, and high school students
• 2-Year Community Colleges in the U.S., (grades 13-14), where the student body is typically from the local community, providing wonderful pathways for community-wide engagement
• 4-Year Colleges and Universities in the U.S., (grades 13-16), with an emphasis on Minority-Serving Institutions, where the program fosters interdisciplinary collaboration across schools and departments, and an opportunity for formal workforce development for science majors
• Communities in the U.S. led by Informal Education or Out-of-School Organizations, (e.g., a museum or science center, a home school network, a boy scout troop), because high caliber STEM education programs must be accessible to organizations that promote effective learning beyond the traditional classroom
• Communities Internationally: in European Space Agency (ESA) member nations, European Union (EU) member nations, Canada, and Japan, with participation through NCESSE’s Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education. Communities in other nations should explore the potential for their participation by contacting the Institute  
  

SSEP is the first pre-college STEM education program that is both a U.S. national initiative and implemented as an on-orbit commercial space venture. SSEP is undertaken by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, and 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.

Flight Opportunities to Date

Since program inception in June 2010, there have been four SSEP flight opportunities: SSEP on
STS-134 and SSEP on STS-135 — the final flights of Space Shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis; and SSEP Missions 1 and 2 to the International Space Station (ISS). For all four flight opportunities combined, 40 communities joined the program, providing 87,000 grade 5-14 students across 265 schools the opportunity to design and propose real spaceflight experiments. Thus far, 10 communities have participated in more than one flight opportunity. A separate SSEP website—the SSEP Community Network Hubsite—is dedicated to the participating communities and the over 200 organizational partners at the local level.

Some milestones:

Through SSEP on STS-134 and SSEP on STS-135, 977 student team proposals were
received, and 27 experiments have flown—one for each community. Read about the Selected Flight Experiments for the final flight of Shuttle Endeavour (STS-134) and Shuttle Atlantis
(STS-135) … and be amazed.

The third SSEP flight opportunity, Mission 1 to ISS, includes 12 participating communities. A total of 779 student team proposals were received, and 15 selected for flight. The Aquarius payload of SSEP Mission 1 experiments is scheduled to fly to ISS in Spring 2012 aboard SpaceX Dragon—the first commercial spacecraft to dock with ISS, heralding in a new era in human spaceflight. Read about the Selected Flight Experiments for Mission 1, and the historic nature of the flight.

The fourth SSEP flight opportunity, Mission 2 to ISS, began on March 5, 2012 with 11 participating communities. The Antares payload of SSEP Mission 2 experiments is slated to fly to ISS in Fall 2012.

NEW Flight Opportunity
April, 2012: Announcing SSEP Mission 3 to the International Space Station (ISS)

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education announces a historic Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) opportunity on the International Space Station (ISS). Each participating community will be provided all launch services to fly a real microgravity research mini-laboratory on ISS from early April to mid-May, 2013, and a kit for assembly of their mini-lab. The community’s experiment design competition allows student teams to design real microgravity experiments vying for their community’s reserved mini-lab slot on ISS. SSEP Mission 3 to ISS is currently the only SSEP flight opportunity available.

Time Available for Experiment Design: Your Student Teams, together with their Teacher Facilitators, will have at least 8 weeks (September 17 to November 9, 2012) to: begin the program in classrooms across your community, design experiments, and write and submit 5-page proposals, with proposals due by November 9, 2012.

TIME CRITICAL Letters of Commitment from Participating Communities: due September 12, 2012

Other Key Milestones:

• Experiments selected for flight: December 7, 2012
• Ferry Flight of SSEP Payload to ISS, currently projected launch date: early April 2013
• Ferry Flight of SSEP Payload back to Earth, currently projected landing date: mid-May 2013
• SSEP National Conference for students: early July 2013, most likely held at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, the site of the 2011 and 2012 Conferences

Program Basics

SSEP provides significant flexibility for a community to design a program to their strategic needs in STEM education—

• A community of any size can participate, including a small school district, an individual school, a large inner city or suburban district, a cluster of rural districts, a college, or a museum/science center or other informal education led community-based effort
• The baseline SSEP program provides for typically 300-1,000 students—and as many as 3,200 students—to participate in the Experiment Design Competition in each community
• A community can open the competition to any grade level(s) in the grade 5-16 range, and through the provided elements of the SSEP Community Program, engage wider audiences (all grade levels, families, and the general public). The Community Program includes: a competition to design a Mission Patch to fly in space with your flight experiment, a customized SSEP Blog for your community, and a SSEP National Conference in Washington, DC. The Community Program also includes the potential for a National Team of scientists and engineers to travel to your community for up to a week, and engage thousands of grade K-16 students—one classroom at a time; conduct family and public programs like those the Center conducts at the National Air and Space Museum; and provide professional development for grade K-12 teachers.
• SSEP is a bold new commercial space venture in partnership with NanoRacks LLC. The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, must recover the actual costs for the program (lease of space in the flight payload, flight integration services, program delivery and support), but also recognizes the significant challenge to a community in securing underwriting in the current financial climate. That said, the Center is committed to trying to find funding for any community in the U.S. interested in participating. The Center found funding for 37 of the 50 SSEP community programs undertaken as part of the first four SSEP flight opportunities, and we now have active relationships with a network of funders across the nation. If you are interested in this program, let us help.

Vision

SSEP was designed to be a keystone initiative for U.S. National STEM education, and to help inspire America’s next generation of scientists and engineers. Through the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education, the International arm of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, SSEP participation is also being expanded internationally to reflect the multinational complexion of ISS operations.

We want SSEP to provide routine student researcher access to space via commercial payloads, to leverage the power of such access into a STEM education program delivered across an entire community, and to serve a network of such communities across the nation—even internationally.

Phase 1 of the program was a unique and historic opportunity for students to propose experiments to fly aboard STS-134 and STS-135, the final flights of the Space Shuttle. We wanted the final voyages of the Space Shuttle to also mark a new beginning for private sector sponsored student experiments in space. Phase 2 of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, launched June 2011, provides sustainable, ongoing access to space for communities of grade 5-16 students inspired to propose experiments for low Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station, with transport aboard the NanoRacks manifest of cargo ships after the Space Shuttle era comes to a close.

To our children, who are America’s future in the 21^st century—
be part of history … by making history.

To schools and school districts committed to STEM education—
together let’s help your students step into the shoes of scientists and engineers … right now.

PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH SCHOOL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENTS, DISTRICT SCIENCE OFFICES, PRINCIPALS, TEACHERS, AND OTHER COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS

INTERESTED? YOUR NEXT STEP: go to the About SSEP page for a comprehensive overview of SSEP, including a description of strategic STEM objectives, program elements, customization to community need, and cost.

SSEP is undertaken by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in partnership with NanoRacks LLC. This on-orbit, real research opportunity for students 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.

All content on this website is Copyright 2012, National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE). Any use of this content without the permission of NCESSE is prohibited.