Archive | SSEP National Blog

NCESSE and NanoRacks Commence SSEP On-Orbit Flight Operations on ISS For Student Experiment Payloads Antares and Aquarus II

At 6:56 am EDT today a robotic arm on the International Space Station captured the Dragon vehicle. Aboard Dragon are Antares, the SSEP Mission 2 to ISS experiments payload, and Aquarius II, the Mission 1 experiments payload. With this milestone, the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) and NanoRacks formally announce the […]

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SSEP Antares and Aquarius II Experiments Payloads Integrated into Dragon Vehicle

NanoRacks informed the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education that the Antares payload, carrying the 11 Mission 2 experiment mini-labs, and the Aquarius II payload, carrying 12 Mission 1 experiment mini-labs for re-flight, were integrated into the SpaceX Dragon vehicle on Saturday, October 6, 2012. We are now go for launch, at 8:35 […]

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NASA Issues Press Release on SSEP: “SPACEX DRAGON TO CARRY 23 STUDENT EXPERIMENTS TO SPACE STATION”

At 4:30 pm Eastern today, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration issued a Press Release on Student Spaceflight Experiment Program (SSEP) Mission 1 and Mission 2 to ISS experiment payloads flying on SpaceX-1, October 7, 2012. The full text of the NASA Press Release is provided below. Over 200 partner institutions – school districts, corporate foundations, […]

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NCESSE is Honored to Present the 21 Mission Patches – Selected From 5,960 Submissions, Launching October 7, 2012, with the SSEP Mission 2 to ISS Experiments Payload

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education is proud to present the 21 Mission Patches selected for flight to the International Space Station (ISS) in Antares, the experiments payload for SSEP Mission 2 to ISS. Across the 11 communities participating in Mission 2 to ISS, 37,600 students were given the opportunity to participate in […]

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SpaceX-1 Spectacular Night Launch Set for October 7, 2012, with SSEP Antares and Aquarius II Experiment Payloads – SSEP Partner Organizations Invited to Send Delegations

Late last week, NASA formally announced that SpaceX-1 will launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 8:34 pm ET, October 7, 2012. (The NASA Press Release is provided below.) It will be the first operational flight of the Dragon spacecraft for International Space Station resupply. Aboard Dragon will be the Antares payload of 11 […]

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A Salute from SSEP to the End of the Shuttle Era – Thank You Endeavour | Teachers, Watch History Live with Your Students this Morning

Today, the U.S. Space Shuttle Program will take its final flight. At 8:15 am PDT this morning, Endeavour will begin a fly-over of northern California and the Los Angeles area atop the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. At about 12:45 pm PDT she will land at LAX, headed for permanent display at the California Science Center. […]

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SpaceX-1 Launch Now “October +”

TO ALL SSEP FLIGHT EXPERIMENT TEAMS The NASA Consolidated Launch Schedule now indicates that the SpaceX-1 Commercial Resupply Flight will launch “October +”.  This indicates a No Earlier Than (NET) launch date of at least October 1. The date of the launch therefore remains highly fluid, and no definitive information on a target launch date […]

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Re-flight of Entire SSEP Mission 1 Payload of Experiments – as Aquarius II – on Upcoming SpaceX Dragon Launch

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) is announcing a re-flight of the Aquarius payload of Mission 1 to ISS experiments due to activation/deactivation failure of the Fluids Mixing Enclosure (FME) mini-labs aboard ISS in May/June 2012. Re-flight of an “Aquarius II” payload of Mission 1 experiments will accompany the Mission 2 […]

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Get Back into the Spirit of SSEP: Stunning Video of Our Home World from Your International Space Station

While schools are in recess for summer break across the nation, the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education is gearing up for a sweeping array of SSEP activities this Fall – Two SSEP payloads – the Antares payload of 11 Mission 2 to ISS experiments, and Aquarius II, a re-flight of all Mission 1 […]

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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.