Click on the image and feel the magic. Shuttle Endeavour on its final flight (STS-134) docked at ISS, May 23, 2011. Aboard her is the very first SSEP payload of 16 Experiments.
The 2025 SSEP National Conference took place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Wednesday, July 2, 2025. We had over 100 attendees from communities across the US, Brazil, and Portugal.
There were 14 student team oral presentations reflecting Missions 18 through 20, and videos of the presentations are now posted on the website (link below). For those communities that sent delegations to the conference, please share your team’s presentation with your community.
This was an authentic research conference, with timed presentations and a 6 minute cut-off, and Q&A from the audience. We had 3 middle school teams, 4 high school teams, and 7 undergraduate teams. Most of the students had never done such a formal presentation before – in front of their peers, and on their research via powerpoint. It was remarkable to see the level of professionalism and poise – even from the 6th and 7th grade teams from Hillsborough County, FL, and Waxahachie, TX. We are very proud of all of the student researchers. Truly well done.
The conference also had 3 featured presentations, including a presentation by former astronaut Dr. Don Thomas on never giving up on your dreams, and a presentation by Patrick O’Neill on past, current, and future research on the International Space Station (ISS). Patrick is from the ISS National Laboratory. I gave a keynote address on the nature of human exploration, and our place in the universe.
Attendees at the conference were also able to explore the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, including the stunning display of Space Shuttle Atlantis.The second SSEP payload to fly was on STS-135, the final flight of Atlantis, which was the final flight of the US Space Shuttle Program on July 8, 2011. For the SSEP team, it is an emotional experience to walk into the Space Shuttle Atlantis building, see the vehicle, and realize this is how SSEP started. Since then, we have had SSEP payloads launch on 20 rockets for operation on ISS, engaged 169,000 students in experiment design, saw 32,600 flight experiment proposals submitted by student teams, and engaged 249,000 students in the mission patch art and design competitions. And all these students, their teachers and communities … were part of America’s Space Program. It is what we promised.
STS-135, the final launch of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program, the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis, July 8, 2011. Aboard her is the second payload of 11 SSEP experiments.
You can read about all the SSEP experiment payloads, see videos of all SSEP launches, and see all SSEP participating astronauts (you won’t believe how many) along with links to their bios and social media accounts, on the SSEP Launch and On-orbit Operations History page.
We are looking forward to the 2026 Conference at NASA KSC, most likely late June / Early July 2026.
LINKS:
1. The 2025 Conference main page, note at the top of this page are links to subpages for the conference agenda, summaries of all student team oral presentations, and descriptions of the featured presentations
2. Link to the Student Team oral presentation videos for all Missions
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