NOTE: This is a sub-page of the About SSEP main page.
You may want to read the About SSEP main page first—it describes how we can aggressively help you find underwriting. We found underwriting for 11 of the 16 communities participating in the STS-134 flight opportunity. The About SSEP main page also provides an excellent and comprehensive program orientation.
The SSEP Program Costs detailed below are for the current SSEP flight opportunity aboard the final flight of Shuttle Atlantis, STS-135.
We are making SSEP available as a Baseline Program that provides for breadth of programming at the lowest possible cost. The Baseline Program reserves for your community an Experiment Slot in the mini-lab scheduled to fly, provides the Flight Experiment Design Competition for up to 3,200 students, provides all Teacher and Student Proposer Resources, and provides the majority of the Community Program elements. The Baseline Program can then be augmented with Supplemental Program Options allowing the community to broaden SSEP as they see fit.
Baseline SSEP Program Cost: $19,950
1. Program Elements
B — Baseline Program
S — Supplemental Program Option
a. Experiment Slot aboard STS-135 (see Designing the Flight Experiment page)
- B — one reserved Experiment Slot in the MDA Mini-Laboratory (see STS-135 Mini-Lab Operation page)
- B — one Experiment Design and Ground Truth Block (see STS-135 Mini-Lab Operation page)
- S — lease of a MDA Demonstration Unit (see STS-135 Mini-Lab Operation page)
b. Community-wide Flight Experiment Design Competition (see Design Competition page)
- B — ongoing Program Assistance for the community leadership and teachers
- B — SSEP receipt of 3 Finalist Proposals from community per reserved Experiment Slot
- B — Step 2 Review of Finalist Proposals: processing, selection, feedback, and showcase
c. Teacher and Student Proposer Resources (see Resources page)
- B — ongoing Technical Assistance for student teams and teachers across the community
- B — National SSEP Website (this site): rich in content and program resources
- B — FAQ
- B — Informational Video Clips on programming, and flight hardware operation
- B — Document Library: containing documents on programming, experiment design, and proposal submission
d. Community Program (see Community Program page)
- B — SSEP National Blog, providing up-to-date news and information on SSEP
- B — SSEP Community Network Hubsite, an online gathering spot to explore all activities across the participating communities
- B — Student Team Clips archived at YouTube
- B — customized SSEP Community Blog (see, e.g., Ballston Spa, NY, Blog); and an aggregated Community Blog Steam from across the Community Blogs
- B — SSEP Weekly Tweet-up
- B — Student Voices of Mission Control
- S — National Team Delivery of Community-wide Programming, potentially including:
- Classroom Visits for up to 4,000 grade K-14 students
- Family/Public programs for the community
- awards to student teams
- Professional Development for educators
- S — SSEP National Conference in Washington, DC (Registration fee required for all attendees)
2. Cost of Supplemental Program Options
Community-wide Programming by the National Team (see Community Program page): including, Classroom Visits to potentially thousands of students, Family/Public Programs, and Professional Devleopment for educators.
Cost: the cost is dependent on the scope of the program desired. We can customize the program to fit both audience size and budget. Contact SSEP.
SSEP National Conference in Washington, DC (see Community Program page): the community is responsible for the registration fee per attendee.
Cost: the registration fee will be based on total projected attendance obtained through a survey of SSEP participating communities, and we will keep the fee as low as possible. We will also explore securing a national underwriter, which could eliminate the registration fee entirely.
Expanding the Number of Students Participating in the Design Competition: a school district may want more than 3,200 students to participate in their experiment design competition.
Cost: to assess the added cost, based on what you have in mind, Contact SSEP.
Purchase of Additional MDA Experiment Design and Ground Truth Blocks: the Baseline Program includes a single Block. With Multiple blocks, individual schools participating in SSEP can each have their own Block as a powerful aid in experiment design.
Cost per additional Block: $100 (includes shipping)
Lease of a MDA Demo Unit: the Unit is shipped from ITA to the community, and the community is responsible for retun of the Unit after the flight.
Cost per Demo Unit: $1,720 (note the community is also responsible for shipping costs from ITA, and for the return to ITA)
Reserving Additional Experiment Slots in the Min-Laboratory: this option allows a community to fly 2 (or more) experiments, and even hold concurrent competitions. One approach might be to conduct one competition for a slot reserved for grades 5-8 and one for a slot reserved for grades 9-12, so that middle school students are not competing directly with high school students. The community submits 3 finalist proposals for each additional Experiment Slot.
Cost per additional Experiment Slot: $13,000
3. Other Costs Borne by the Community
Launch Insurance: NanoRacks, LLC, requires each participating community to contribute to a catastrophic launch insurance policy for the mini-lab payload in the amount of $256.50 for each experiment slot reserved by the community.
Experiment samples (fluids and solids): the cost of the experiment samples to be used in the student experiments.
Travel Costs to KSC: all travel costs for students/teachers traveling to Kennedy Space Center for: 1) observing pre-launch loading of experiment samples into the MDA, possibly hand-carrying time-sensitive samples, and watching Shuttle launch; and/or 2) post-launch receipt of samples harvested from payload.
Shipping Costs: cost of FedEx for: 1) the community to send experiment samples to ITA for the Fluid/Sample Compatibility Test as part of the NASA flight safety review; 2) the community to send flight samples to Kennedy Space Center for integration into the payload; 3) the community to send their Mission Patch to NCESSE, and the return of the Mission Patch after the flight; and 4) ITA to send harvested experiment samples by mail if community representatives do not travel to Kennedy Space Center to receive samples.
Step 1 Review Board: all costs associated with meetings of the community’s Step 1 Review Board, and associated activities.
Travel Costs to DC: all travel costs for students/teachers traveling to the National SSEP Conference in Washington, DC.
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