University Students And Professors Ready To "Rock On" With NASA
WASHINGTON -- University students and professors from across the
country and Puerto Rico will converge on NASA's Wallops Flight
Facility in Virginia this month to learn how to build small
experiments that can be launched on sounding rockets. This is part of
a week-long workshop, known as RockOn!, that begins June 19.
The 80 workshop participants will build standardized experiments that
will fly on a NASA Terrier-Orion suborbital sounding rocket set to
launch between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. EDT on June 24. The 35-foot-tall
rocket is expected to fly to an altitude of 75 miles. After launch
and payload recovery, the participants will conduct preliminary data
analysis and discuss their results.
In addition to the 7 workshop-built experiments, 11 custom-built,
self-contained experiments also will fly on the rocket inside a
payload canister known as RockSat. The latter experiments were
developed at ten universities that previously had participated in a
RockOn! workshop.
The workshop is funded by NASA's National Space Grant College and
Fellowship Program in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia
Space Grant Consortia. This will be the third year for the workshop.
The Space Grant national network includes more than 850 affiliates
from universities, colleges, industry, science centers, and state and
local agencies. The goal is to support and enhance science and
engineering education, and research and public outreach efforts for
NASA's aeronautics and space projects. These affiliates belong to one
of 52 consortia in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto
Rico.
For more information on RockOn! and RockSat, visit:
http://spacegrant.colorado.
For more information about NASA's education programs visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/education
NASA's Sounding Rocket Program Office is providing the rocket for the
workshop. For more information about the office, visit:
http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/
Source: NASA
