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The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is about inspiring America’s next generation of scientists and engineers, and engaging entire communities in the process. It is a national program delivered at the local level, with student teams across a community designing and proposing real experiments to fly in orbit as the core activity. But community-wide engagement, and cross-disciplinary learning are also cornerstone objectives in the context of the embraced Learning Community Model for STEM education.
In this spirit, for each flight opportunity, SSEP flies a Mission Patch — a paper 4-inch x 4-inch square emblem designed by the students of each participating community to capture their experience. The Mission Patch flies along with the community’s flight experiment, and is returned after the flight as a symbol of the community’s remarkable adventure in STEM education on the high frontier.
Each Mission Patch is the result of a design competition held in the community. While participation should be open to at least the students participating in the SSEP experiment design competition (which is limited to grades 5-12), we encourage each community to broaden participation by opening the design competition to wider student involvement across grades K-12, and to classes beyond STEM disciplines. The Mission Patch is a wonderful way to extend ownership in SSEP to the greater community.
Jump to Mission Patches on Mission 1 to the International Space Station page
Jump to Mission Patches on STS-135 page
Jump to Mission Patches on STS-134 page
What a great idea! The Mission Patch is an excellent way to extend involvement in the program to participating communities. Thank you for all of your efforts to further science education in schools.