Last update to this page: May 5, 2012, 6:46 am EDT
Payload Ferry Flights and ISS Crew Data
Ferry Vehicle to ISS: SpaceX Dragon/Falcon 9 (note: originally Soyuz 30, see Blog Post)
Crew: None
Launch Date: May 19, 2012 (see Flight Schedule at nasa.gov)
Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Docking at ISS: likely May 20, 2012
Ferry Vehicle for Return to Earth: Soyuz (TMA-03M) 29S
Crew: Kononenko, Pettit, Kuipers
Undocking/Landing Date: Late June, 2012 (see Flight Schedule at nasa.gov)
Landing Site: Kazakhstan
Payload Duration on ISS: Approximately 2 months
Notable: visit the NASA ISS website for a comprehensive overview of ISS construction, on-orbit research, operations, crews, and multimedia galleries; read about the SpaceX Falcon rocket and Dragon spacecraft at nasa.gov; read about the Soyuz TMA vehicle at nasa.gov
ISS Crew for SSEP Mission 1 Payload Operations: Expedition 31
Station Commander Oleg Kononenko (Russia); Flight Engineers André Kuipers (ESA-Netherlands), Don Pettit (USA), Joe Acaba (USA), Gennady Padalka (Russia), and Sergei Revin (Russia)
SSEP Mission 1 to ISS: Payload and Program Data
Payload Designation: SSEP3 – Aquarius (named for Apollo 13 Lunar Lander)
Number of Student Experiments: 15
Payload: Suite of Fluids Mixing Enclosure (FME) Mini-laboratories
Stowage: NanoRacks Express Rack on ISS
History:
The third SSEP flight opportunity—SSEP Mission 1 to the International Space Station—was announced by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) on July 31, 2011, with an accompanying Video Clip by Center Director, Dr. Jeff Goldstein.
As a result, 12 communities across the U.S. joined Mission 1 to ISS, providing 41,200 grade 5-14 students, across 92 schools, the opportunity to design and propose real experiments to fly aboard ISS. Student teams submitted 779 proposals from which 15 were selected to fly to ISS—one for each community and 3 backup experiments. Visit the SSEP Community Network Hubsite for descriptions of the selected experiments, profiles of the participating communities, the SSEP In the News page, and thoughts on program impact from students, teachers, and administrators on the In Our Own Words page.
Current Status:
As of April 18, 2012: NanoRacks is in receipt of all 15 student team mini-labs, has integrated them into the Aquarius payload, and handed the payload over to NASA for vehicle integration into the Dragon spacecraft for launch on May 19, 2012.
A List of Important SSEP Mission 1 to ISS Subpages:
SSEP Mission 1 to ISS: Critical Timeline
SSEP Mission 1 to ISS: Mini-Laboratory Operation
SSEP Mission 1 to ISS: Mission Patch Art and Design Competition
SSEP Mission 1 to ISS: Flight Phase Operations
Launch Viewing Plans for SpaceX Dragon
