A Model U.S. National STEM Education Initiative for Grades 5-16

to inspire the next generation

of America’s scientists and engineers



NEW FLIGHT OPPORTUNITY – Mission 15 to ISS (Go to 2/3/20 Announcement)

Experiment Design Phase: Fall 2020; Flight to ISS: Late Spring 2021 Download: Press Release PDF



Watch Video Clips describing SSEP: Clip 1 (NASA), Clip 2 (NASA)

STEM Impact in Era of Commercial Space: Video – SSEP Showcased at Congressional Hearing, 11/5/19

Scientific American feature article on SSEP: February 17, 2015

Mission 15 Downloads:

– Mission 15 3-page Program Overview (MS Word)

– Mission 15 Powerpoint for Briefings to Stakeholders (PDF)

– 2-page SSEP Overview with Strategic Objectives, used for Congressional Briefings (PDF)



Breaking News from the SSEP National Blog

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Multimedia (click on toggles below)

ISS Current Location The ISS Current Location tracker above was developed by the European Space Agency (ESA). ESA’s Columbus laboratory is a component of the ISS. Visit the ESA website for more information on the tracker.

HDEV Live View of Earth from ISS If the image is black, you may be using a less than optimal browser such as Safari (try Chrome), or ISS is on the night side of Earth. To check, use the ‘ISS Current Location’ above. Note: ISS orbits Earth in 90 minutes, with 45 minutes of daylight followed by 45 minutes of darkness. This high definition video of your world is being telemetered to Earth LIVE from the International Space Station. To determine what portion of Earth is in view, use the ‘ISS Current Location’ toggle above. We invite you to get into the spirit of exploration on the frontiers of space – select an audio file below, expand the HDEV video window to full screen, and look down from 250 miles above Earth’s surface. Suggestions for other audio tracks are welcome:) David Bowie’s Space Oddity, sung by Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield on ISS (watch his video)

http://ssep.ncesse.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Space-Oddity.mp3 Superman

http://ssep.ncesse.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Superman_Theme.mp3 Star Trek TNG

http://ssep.ncesse.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/star-trek-thenextgeneration.mp3 About HDEV, from NASA: The High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment aboard the ISS was activated April 30, 2014. It is mounted on the External Payload Facility of the European Space Agency’s Columbus module. HDEV includes four fixed cameras positioned to capture imagery of the Earth’s surface and its limb as seen from the ISS – one camera pointing in the direction the station is moving, two cameras aft (wake), and one camera pointing straight down at Earth (nadir). While the experiment is operational, views will typically sequence though the different cameras. Between camera switches, a gray and then black color slate will briefly appear. To learn more about the HDEV experiment, visit this NASA webpage.



Spot the Station: When Will ISS Fly Over Your Town? You may not know this, but the International Space Station is the second brightest object in the night sky after the Moon, and has been flying over your head in plain sight (and likely unnoticed) for many years. NASA’s Spot the Station website has been allowing the general public to determine when Station will be flying overhead, and even allows you to sign up for email notification in advance of a Station over-flight of your community. In late 2015, the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education suggested to NASA Headquarters that a Spot the Station widget, which could be easily embedded on any website, would be a wonderful way to extend ISS public awareness. The widget below was the result, and you’ll note that it is also found in the right column on all main pages of this SSEP website. You are invited to use the widget to explore Station over-flights of your community, and even embed this widget on your website by clicking on the “About” button in the widget.

SSEP MISSIONS 14 to 16 TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION AND COMMEMORATION OF THE 50th ANNIVERSARY OF THE APOLLO MOON LANDINGS

The flight of Apollo 11 to the Moon, crewed by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, may be arguably the most remarkable journey ever undertaken by humankind. At 9:56 pm EST on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on another world.

In 2019 the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and it is noteworthy that 1.5 billion people alive today were alive in 1969.

But the Apollo program included a total of 9 missions with a spacecraft traveling to the Moon, and 6 of those missions each landed 2 astronauts on the lunar surface. To date, 12 humans have walked on the Moon – a quarter of a million miles from our home world Earth. These missions took place 1968 to 1972 – from Apollo 8, with the first spacecraft to fly around the Moon, to Apollo 17, the final Apollo mission.

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) is using SSEP Missions 14 through 16 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo Program, given SSEP program operations for these three missions span 2019-2022. SSEP Mission 14 started in September 2019, and SSEP Mission 16 experiments are expected to be launched in Late Spring 2022.

SSEP Mission 14 – 16 communities can therefore use their participation in SSEP as a 50th Anniversary Apollo celebration, with multidisciplinary connections to STEM, history, and art. What better way to celebrate the 50th anniversary than engaging a community of hundreds of students in the real space program, and real spaceflight, on the frontiers of human exploration.

SSEP Mission SSEP Program Operations Apollo Mission Dates Mission 14 2019 – 2020 1969 – Apollo 11, 12; 1970 – Apollo 13 Mission 15 2020 – 2021 1970 – Apollo 13; 1971 – Apollo 14, 15 Mission 16 2021 – 2022 1971 – Apollo 14,15; 1972 – Apollo 16, 17

We invite your community to use your SSEP Mission Patch Art and Design Competitions to both capture your community’s participation in America’s Space Program through SSEP, and celebrate these most remarkable journeys undertaken by the human race 50 years ago. It is an opportunity to celebrate the past, embrace the present, and inspire in our next generation … the future.

We also invite you to explore the SSEP Launch and On-Orbit Operations History page, which provides a sense of the already rich history of the SSEP Program. Here you will find s list of SSEP missions and payload designations, videos of all SSEP launches, a list of all astronauts that have operated SSEP experiments, and videos of astronauts operating the experiments.

SSEP Executive Summary

A careful read of this home page will provide an Executive Summary of the Program. The rest of this website provides a deeper understanding of program pedagogy and operations; guidance for how a community can come aboard; and resources to conduct the program.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) was launched in June 2010 by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in strategic partnership with Nanoracks, LLC. Designed as a model U.S. national Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education initiative, the program gives students across a participating community the ability to design and propose real microgravity experiments to fly in low Earth orbit (experiments conducted in a “weightless” environment). SSEP was first carried out aboard the final two flights of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program in 2011 (STS-134 Endeavour, STS-135 Atlantis). In 2012 SSEP transitioned to operations on the International Space Station (ISS) – America’s newest National Laboratory.

SSEP is suitable for students in pre-college grades 5-12, 2-year community colleges, and 4-year colleges and universities. A participating pre-college community typically engages 300+ students (at least 100 students) in microgravity experiment design and proposal writing. For an undergraduate community, it is expected that at least 30 students will be engaged.

In 2012, SSEP was extended to international communities through the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education, NCESSE’s new international arm.

SSEP is about immersing and engaging

students and their teachers in every facet

of real science—on the high frontier—so

that students are given the chance to be

scientists—and experience science firsthand.

More broadly, SSEP is about a commitment to student ownership in exploration, to science as journey, and to the joys of learning.

Of special note – SSEP is garnering extensive media coverage at local, regional, and national levels (over 1,200 articles to date). School districts are effectively leveraging media exposure from their participation in this high caliber STEM initiative, and at a time when STEM education is of national strategic importance, and is becoming a core element of the curriculum at the local level (see the SSEP in the News pages, and e.g., a recent Scientific American feature article).

Important note: SSEP is not designed for an individual class or a small number of students in a pre-college community. Implementing SSEP for an appropriate-sized student audience is straightforward, and Implementation Plans from a large number of communities that have participated in SSEP are available on request.





Program Overview

Each community participating in SSEP is provided a very real research asset – a flight certified, straightforward to use microgravity research mini-laboratory, and guaranteed launch services to transport the mini-laboratory to the International Space Station (ISS). It is a precious and limited research asset given that the mini-laboratory can only contain a single student team designed microgravity experiment. An astronaut aboard ISS will conduct the experiment, and after a typical 4 to 6 week stay in orbit, the experiment will be returned safely to Earth for harvesting and analysis by the community’s student flight team.

Mirroring how professional researchers formally compete to obtain limited research assets, the participating community carries out a “call for proposals”. More specifically, the community conducts a local Flight Experiment Design Competition, engaging hundreds of students in teams of typically 3-5, with each team vying for the community’s single experiment slot by proposing a microgravity research program that can be carried out in the mini-laboratory. The competition is conducted through formal submission of real (but grade level appropriate) research proposals by the student teams – as is standard practice for professional researchers. (A minimum of 50-80 flight experiment proposals are typically secured across a single pre-college community. At least 10 proposals are required for an undergraduate community.)

Each community’s flight experiment is selected through a formal 2-step proposal review process. The final selection is carried out by the SSEP National Step 2 Review Board, which meets at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The flight experiment then undergoes a 4-month NASA flight safety review at Johnson Space Center; laboratory refinement by the student flight team; handover to Nanoracks in Houston for integration into the SSEP experiments payload; and payload integration into the ferry vehicle for flight to ISS. SSEP experiment payloads launch from either Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, adjoining NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, or from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), Wallops Island, Virginia, on a Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft.

SSEP is not a simulation – this is very real spaceflight. This is very real student immersion in space science research, and a remarkable opportunity for a community.

Stated more powerfully —

SSEP provides each community its own – very real – Space Program.

An annual SSEP National Conference held at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, immerses delegations of students in a real research conference where they formally present to their peers on experiment design and science results (explore the 2019 Conference page, and video clips of presentations archived on the Scientific Return and Reporting pages, see e.g., Mission 12 to ISS Scientific Return and Reporting and Mission 13 to ISS Scientific Return and Reporting).

A suite of SSEP program elements—the Community Program—leverages the flight experiment design competition to engage the entire community, embracing a Learning Community Model for STEM education. One element is a Mission Patch art and design competition allowing hundreds of students across the community (down to grade K) to capture through art and design their community’s SSEP experience. Up to two Mission Patches accompany the community’s selected flight experiment to low Earth orbit.



Strategic Curricular Connections to Science and STEM

Students can design experiments in diverse fields, including: seed germination, crystal growth, micro-encapsulation, chemical processes, physiology and life cycles of microorganisms (e.g. bacteria), cell biology and growth, food studies, and studies of micro-aquatic life. SSEP is therefore relevant across all science disciplines, and allows all teachers of science across a community to immerse students in a fully authentic process of scientific inquiry. A curriculum, and other resources for teachers and students, supports foundational instruction on both the cause and characteristics of a microgravity (weightlessness) environment; the science conducted in microgravity and why; guidance for proposal writing; and the experiment design process that flows from the key essential question–

The essential question driving experiment design:

What physical, chemical, or biological system would I like to explore with gravity seemingly turned off for a period of time, as a means of assessing the role of gravity in that system?

SSEP provides seamless integration across STEM disciplines through an authentic, high visibility research experience that correctly places content within a process landscape – an approach that embraces the Next Generation Science Standards, but also requires –

a critical understanding of the space Technology , and associated spaceflight operations, used to transport payload to and from Low Earth Orbit and conduct microgravity experiments on ISS,

, and associated spaceflight operations, used to transport payload to and from Low Earth Orbit and conduct microgravity experiments on ISS, a critical understanding of the Engineering specifications for the mini-laboratory, which provide real-world constraints on experiment design,

specifications for the mini-laboratory, which provide real-world constraints on experiment design, Mathematics to design a viable experiment to operate in the mini-laboratory, through: refinement of sample (fluid and solid) concentrations and volumes, defining a timeline that is consistent with the experiment’s duration aboard ISS, and defining an approach to data analysis after the experiment returns to Earth.

In addition, student teams are writing real proposals that then go through a formal review process. This addresses vital skills in terms of historical research, critical writing and communications, and teamwork.

Through this authentic trans-disciplinary approach to STEM education, SSEP is designed to inspire and engage the next generation of scientists and engineers, and more generally, address STEM literacy. For school districts—even individual schools—SSEP provides an opportunity to implement a systemic, high caliber STEM education program tailored to community need. With the Mission Patch art and design competitions, SSEP is more appropriately designated a STEAM initiative.



Appropriate Lead Institutions to Conduct this Program

The program is open to 5 categories of community, which provides a great deal of flexibility in implementing SSEP at the local level:

Pre-College (the core focus for SSEP) in the U.S. , (grades 5-12), with a participating school district—even an individual school—providing a stunning, real, on-orbit RESEARCH opportunity to their upper elementary, middle, and high school students

(grades 5-12), with a participating school district—even an individual school—providing a stunning, real, on-orbit RESEARCH opportunity to their upper elementary, middle, and high school students 2-Year Community Colleges in the U.S., (grades 13-14), where the student body is typically from the local community, providing wonderful pathways for community-wide engagement

(grades 13-14), where the student body is typically from the local community, providing wonderful pathways for community-wide engagement 4-Year Colleges and Universities in the U.S. , (grades 13-16), with an emphasis on Minority-Serving Institutions, where the program fosters interdisciplinary collaboration across schools and departments, and an opportunity for formal workforce development for science majors

(grades 13-16), with an emphasis on Minority-Serving Institutions, where the program fosters interdisciplinary collaboration across schools and departments, and an opportunity for formal workforce development for science majors Communities in the U.S. led by Informal Education or Out-of-School Organizations, (e.g., a museum or science center, a home school network, a boy scout troop), because high caliber STEM education programs must be accessible to organizations that promote effective learning beyond the traditional classroom

(e.g., a museum or science center, a home school network, a boy scout troop), because high caliber STEM education programs must be accessible to organizations that promote effective learning beyond the traditional classroom Communities Internationally: in European Space Agency (ESA) member nations, European Union (EU) member nations, Canada, and Japan with participation through NCESSE’s Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education. Communities in other nations should explore the potential for their participation by contacting the Institute.



Flight Opportunities to Date

Since program inception in June 2010, there have been 16 SSEP flight opportunities—SSEP on STS-134 and STS-135, which were the final flights of Space Shuttles Endeavour and Atlantis; and SSEP Missions 1 through 14 to ISS. A total of 191 communities have participated in the program, reflecting 42 States and the District of Columbia in the U. S., 5 Provinces in Canada, and a community in Brazil. Thus far 58 communities have participated in multiple flight opportunities – one community conducting their 9th flight with Mission 13 – reflecting the sustainable nature of the program.

Through the first 16 flight opportunities (through Mission 14), a total of 126,600 grade 5-16 students across 2,496 schools were fully immersed in microgravity experiment design and proposal writing, 25,518 flight experiment proposals were received from student teams, and 314 experiments were selected for flight. Through Mission 13, 147,400 students across the entire grade preK-16 pipeline were engaged in their communities’ broader STEAM experience, submitting 120,670 Mission Patch designs.

All 281 experiments selected for flight through Mission 13 have now flown. The Mission 13 experiments launched on SpaceX-18 on July 25, 2019, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL, and returned to Earth on August 27, 2019. Another 33 experiments are expected to launch in Summer 2020 as the Mission 14 Apollo payload of experiments on SpaceX-21, launching from the Cape.

For more information on SSEP Missions to date–

Explore the SSEP Launch and On-Orbit Operations History page, which provides videos of all SSEP launches, a list of all astronauts that have operated SSEP experiments, and videos of astronauts operating the experiments.

Explore the Flight Opportunities to Date page, which provides launch and landing dates, and information on the ferry spacecraft, astronaut crews aboard ISS during experiment operation, and the SSEP flight experiment payloads.

Explore the separate SSEP website – the SSEP Community Network Hubsite – which is dedicated to the participating communities and the over 1,250 organizational partners at the local level. At the Hubsite, you can read profiles of the participating communities, see a map of the Community Network, read about the selected flight experiments and flight Mission Patches, explore the 1,000+ media articles on SSEP, and watch videos of student teams reporting out at the SSEP National Conferences in Washington, DC.



Latest Flight Opportunity

February 3, 2020: Announcing SSEP Mission 15 to the International Space Station (ISS)

The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education announce the seventeenth SSEP flight opportunity – SSEP Mission 15 to ISS – which provides for an experiment design competition Fall 2020, and a ferry flight for the selected flight experiments to ISS in Late Spring 2021. SSEP Mission 15 to ISS is currently the only SSEP flight opportunity available.

Time Available for Experiment Design:

Your Student Teams, led by your designated SSEP Local Team of Teacher Facilitators, will have 9 weeks from program start to proposal submission: September 1 to November 4, 2020. During this time, core activities include:

introducing SSEP curricular content for foundational instruction on: the nature of microgravity, science conducted in microgravity, mini-laboratory operation, and experimental design

defining student teaming, and facilitation of microgravity experiment design across all student teams

each team writing a formal 5-page, grade level appropriate flight experiment proposal

Key Milestones:

Experiment Design and Proposal Writing (9 weeks): September 1 – November 4, 2020

September 1 – November 4, 2020 Flight Experiment Proposals due to your lead institution: November 4, 2020

November 4, 2020 Local Step 1 Review Board selects 3 finalist proposals, submits to NCESSE: November 13, 2020

November 13, 2020 Formal selection of your community’s flight experiment: December 17, 2020

December 17, 2020 Ferry Flight of SSEP Payload to ISS, estimated launch date: Late Spring 2021

Late Spring 2021 Ferry Flight of SSEP Payload back to Earth: typically Launch Plus 4 – 6 weeks

typically Launch Plus 4 – 6 weeks SSEP National Conference for students: late June or early July 2021 and 2022, most likely held at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC, the site of the 2011 through 2019 Conferences

TIME CRITICAL

Letters of Commitment of Funding from Participating Communities: due August 24, 2020

Mission 15 to ISS Starts in Participating Communities: September 1, 2020

ASAP: Interested communities are directed to contact NCESSE as soon as possible, but no later than March 27, 2020, to explore participation. It typically takes 3-4 months in advance of program start to plan and fund the program in a community (funding with assistance from NCESSE if required – see below).

Contact: Dr. Jeff Goldstein at jeffgoldstein@ncesse.org, or 301-395-0770;

Download: Mission 15 Press Release, or view online



Program Basics

SSEP provides significant flexibility for a community to design a program to their strategic needs in STEM education—

A community of any size can participate, including a small school district, an individual school, a large inner city or suburban district, a cluster of rural districts, a college, or a museum/science center or other informal education led community-based effort

The baseline SSEP program provides for typically 300+ students participating in the Experiment Design Competition in each pre-college community; or at least 30 students participating in an undergraduate community

in each pre-college community; or at least 30 students participating in an undergraduate community A community can open the competition to any grade level(s) in the grade 5-16 range, and through the provided elements of the SSEP Community Program , engage wider audiences (all grade levels, families, and the general public). The Community Program includes: a competition to design a Mission Patch to fly in space with your flight experiment, and a S SEP National Conference in Washington, DC. The Community Program also provides the means for a National Team of scientists and engineers to travel to your community for up to a week, and engage thousands of grade K-16 students—one classroom at a time; conduct family and public programs like those the Center conducts at the National Air and Space Museum; and provide professional development for grade K-12 teachers.

, engage wider audiences (all grade levels, families, and the general public). The Community Program includes: a competition to design a to fly in space with your flight experiment, and a in Washington, DC. The Community Program also provides the means for a National Team of scientists and engineers to travel to your community for up to a week, and engage thousands of grade K-16 students—one classroom at a time; conduct family and public programs like those the Center conducts at the National Air and Space Museum; and provide professional development for grade K-12 teachers. SSEP is a bold new commercial space venture in partnership with DreamUp PBC and Nanoracks LLC. The National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, must recover the actual costs for the program (lease of commercial space for the mini-laboratory in the flight payload and aboard ISS, all flight services to and from low Earth orbit, program delivery and community support), but also recognizes the significant challenge to a community in securing underwriting in the current financial climate. That said, the Center is committed to trying to find funding for any community in the U.S. and Canada interested in participating. The Center found full or partial funding for 224 of the 303 SSEP community programs undertaken as part of the first 16 SSEP flight opportunities, and we now have active relationships with a national network of a few hundred funders. If you are interested in this program, let us help.



Strategic, National, and Local Partners, and Event Sponsors

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. SSEP is enabled through a strategic partnership with DreamUp PBC and Nanoracks LLC, which are working in partnership with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory. NCESSE, the Clarke Institute, DreamUp, and Nanoracks are therefore designated SSEP Strategic Partners. Visit the Strategic Partners page to read about their SSEP programmatic roles and responsibilities.

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.

NCESSE and the Clarke Institute are proud to be working with the following National Partners on SSEP

— in the U.S., the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory managed by the Center for the Advancement of Science in space (CASIS), and Subaru of America, Inc.

— in Canada, Magellan Aerospace.

To read more about these partnerships, visit the National Partners and Sponsors page.

Underwriting by Conference and Event Sponsors make events for the SSEP community network possible. Read more at the National Partners and Sponsors page.

Partnership is truly a hallmark of SSEP. Over 1,250 organizations have supported SSEP at the local level, including: school districts, private schools, NASA Space Grant lead institutions and other universities, corporate foundations, businesses, community foundations, and local research institutions. These organizations are designated the SSEP Local Partners. To explore the Local Partners, visit the Communities & Local Partners page at the Community Network Hubsite.



Vision

SSEP was designed to be a keystone initiative for U.S. National STEM education, and to help inspire America’s next generation of scientists and engineers. Through the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education, the International arm of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education, SSEP participation is also being expanded internationally to reflect the multinational complexion of ISS operations.

Phase 1 of SSEP was a unique and historic opportunity for students to propose experiments to fly aboard STS-134 and STS-135, the final flights of the U.S. Space Shuttle Program. We wanted the final voyages of the Space Shuttle to also mark a new beginning for student experiments in space, enabled by the new age of commercial space – the new private sector of companies providing transport services to and from low Earth orbit. This Phase 2 of SSEP provides communities of grade 5-16 students the ability to design and propose real microgravity experiments, just like professional researchers, for operation by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

We want SSEP to provide routine student researcher access to space via commercial payloads; to leverage the power of such access into a STEM education program delivered at the local level across an entire community; and to serve a network of such communities across the nation—even internationally.

To our children, who are America’s future in the 21st century—

be part of history … by making history.

To schools and school districts committed to STEM education—

let us help your students step into the shoes of scientists and engineers … right now.

PLEASE SHARE THIS WITH SCHOOL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENTS, DISTRICT SCIENCE OFFICES, PRINCIPALS, TEACHERS, AND OTHER COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS

INTERESTED? YOUR NEXT STEP: go to the About SSEP page for a comprehensive overview of SSEP, including a description of strategic STEM objectives, program elements, customization to community need, and cost.

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