An Introduction to the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP)
Orb-1 Clears the Pad, 1:07 pm ET, January 9, 2014. photo-credit: Ken Kremer CLICK FOR ZOOM
Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 7 to the International Space Station (ISS) starts tomorrow, September 8, 2014. At least 25 communities across the U.S. are participating in what is the ninth SSEP flight opportunity in just 4 years. In support of Mission 7, this is a repost of an interview given to Mission Control at NASA Johnson Space Center by Dr. Jeff Goldstein, the creator and director of the SSEP. The interview provides an excellent overview of the program for teachers and students across the Mission 7 community network.
The interview below aired live on NASA TV on January 9, 2014, during the launch of Orbital Sciences 1 (Orb-1) out of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), Wallops Island, Virginia. Aboard the Cygnus spacecraft were the 23 SSEP experiments comprising the Mission 3b Falcon II payload and Mission 4 Orion payload. These 23 experiments represented the culmination of 8,700 students across 23 communities fully immersed in microgravity experiment design and 1,841 flight experiment proposals submitted by student teams.
The backdrop for this interview provides a powerful sense that communities participating in this program are very much a part of America’s and Canada’s Space Program. SSEP is providing real immersion in real science on the frontiers of human exploration for thousands of students.
To all participating in Mission 7 to ISS, welcome aboard, and get used to the expression ‘real spaceflight all the time’ (you’ll be hearing it a lot:)
In advance of presentations by SSEP student researcher delegations, Jeff Goldstein starts the Press Briefing at NASA Wallops Flight Facility, on the Orb-1 Launch of the SSEP Mission 4 Orion Payload of 23 Experiments, January 9, 2014.
NASA TV LIVE – January 9, 2014
Interview, Mission Control, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston
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 NanoRacks LLC, 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.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), and Subaru of America, Inc. are National Partners on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.
