Archive | 2015

New Flight Opportunity for School Districts: Announcing Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 10 to the International Space Station, Starting February 2016

Download a PDF of this Press Release Watch Video: A Program Overview After reading this Press Release, carefully read the SSEP Homepage that serves as an Executive Summary for the program To receive email notification of breaking program news, subscribe to the SSEP National Blog  using the Subscribe Box at the bottom of the right column. Student […]

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Take Pride – From the Director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on the Importance of SSEP for the Future of America’s Space Program

  The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education just updated the National Partners page on the SSEP website, and added a photograph of General John R. “Jack” Dailey, the Director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, addressing SSEP student researcher delegates at the 2014 SSEP National Conference. The photograph (above) reminded […]

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International Space Station Commander Scott Kelly’s Photo of Italy in Moonlight, Taken at the Halfway Point in his Year in Space

Commander Kelly took this photo on September 23, 2015, on his 180th day in orbit – the halfway mark in his stay on Station as part of NASA’s A Year in Space program. Read about what it’s like for him at Air&Space Smithsonian. In the photograph below, north is to the right. To help you orient yourself, […]

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THE SOLUTION to the Mission 9 Student Challenge: Understanding Weightlessness – You Want Me to Take a Bathroom Scale Where?

To teachers starting Mission 9 to ISS, this challenge was posted a week ago on Monday, September 14, 2015. It is designed to help you get your students immersed in Mission 9 microgravity experiment design by first exploring the concept of microgravity (often referred to as the phenomenon of ‘weightlessness’). As promised, here is the solution to […]

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For SSEP Mission 9 to ISS Student Researchers – A Challenge for the Start of Program: Understanding Weightlessness – You Want Me to Take a Bathroom Scale Where?

This post is for teachers in the 22 communities across the U.S. and Canada that just started SSEP Mission 9 to ISS. You are invited to use this Challenge with your students to get them thinking about the concept of microgravity (the technical name for the phenomenon of ‘weightlessness’). In the Challenge below, students are […]

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The Tradition Continues – To the Students, Teachers, and Communities Starting SSEP Mission 9 to ISS, Welcome Aboard America’s and Canada’s Space Program, NASA Johnson Style, and One Direction

  It’s now a space program tradition. Whenever we start a new SSEP flight opportunity, it’s time for NASA Johnson Style. It’s the video below that will get students and teachers in the frame of mind to start Mission 9 to ISS. We want everyone to recognize that what they are about to embark upon […]

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Astronauts Eat Space-Grown Food for the First Time

‘Awesome’, ‘tastes good’, ‘kind of like Arugula’ and ‘that’s fresh’ are the responses of Astronauts Scott Kelly, Kjell Lindgren, and Kimiya Yui of Japan after taking their first bites of food grown on the International Space Station on Monday, August 10, 2015.  The astronauts sampled fresh red romaine lettuce, the first food to be grown, […]

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Loss of SpaceX CRS 7 and Mission 7 Odyssey

SpaceX CRS-7 suffered a critical failure and exploded about 1 minute after launch with complete loss of vehicle. We are expecting a post-event News Conference on NASA TV but currently the expectation is no earlier than 12:30 pm ET. A NASA TV portal is provided below. After the explosion all visitors at the Kennedy Space Center […]

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WATCH LIVE: Launch of SSEP Mission 7 Odyssey, TODAY 10:21 am ET

Today, at 10:21 am ET, SpaceX CRS-7 is launching from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, adjacent to Kennedy Space Center. The vehicle carries the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 7 to ISS Odyssey payload of student experiments. The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) invites you to watch the launch live, […]

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The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S., and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with DreamUp PBC and NanoRacks LLC, which are working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory. 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.