An announcement in my email from the DreamUp education program:
Thirty-Five DreamUp Student Experiments Launch on SpaceX-21
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – December 6, 2020 – DreamUp, the leader in space-based educational offerings, is proud to announce the launch of thirty-five student-designed experiments to the International Space Station on today’s SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-21 rocket launch. These educational payloads, built by students from middle school to university around the world, represent their unprecedented perseverance as they continued to prepare their experiments for flight in unusually challenging circumstances due to COVID-19.
The student payloads launched in SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon alongside thousands of pounds of NASA cargo, supplies, more than 250 science and research investigations, as well as the NanoracksBishop Airlock, the first permanent, commercial addition to the International Space Station infrastructure. The Cargo Dragon is scheduled to dock to the Space Station tomorrow, Monday, December 7, 2020.
Notably, “E. Coli Consuming Carbon Dioxide to Combat Climate Change (E. coli C5)” will be the first payload launched to the International Space Station from Kuwait. Designed by a team of students from the American School of Kuwait who won Orbital Space’s “Experiments in Space” competition, this Mixstix experiment will investigate how a genetically modified strain of E. Coli bacteria that uses atmospheric carbon dioxide as a food source will behave in the microgravity environment of the Space Station.
The Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance, supported by Flight Night, solicited Mixstix experiment proposals from students throughout Oklahoma in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. After participating in a two-phased selection process, six students from three teams were selected as winners. The three teams come from Jenks Southeast Elementary and Summit Christian Academy.
Twenty-eight Mixstix experiments from NCESSE’s Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 14 and three Mixstix from the Ramon Foundation’s Spacelab program represent long-enduring partnerships that reach students in a broad range of schools across Brazil, Canada, Israel, and the United States and inspire countless more.
“It is fitting that this notable launch for commercial space will be carrying such a large and diverse array of student investigations, and I am particularly excited to for the launch of the very first Kuwaiti experiment on the International Space Station!” said Allen Herbert, Interim CEO of DreamUp. “Student-designed microgravity research has the power to excite and engage not only young learners, but their parents, schools, and broader communities, and to equip them to pursue the challenges that humanity will face in the future. DreamUp is proud to support students as they pursue cutting-edge research on the most advanced commercial space platforms, and we congratulate them all on their persistence and tenacity in a challenging time.”
These launch opportunities were made possible via our partnership with Nanoracks and its Space Act Agreement with NASA.
For additional media inquiries, please email us at info@dreamup.org, and for continued updates, be sure to follow @DreamUp_Space on Twitter and Instagram.
About DreamUp: Based in Washington, DC, DreamUp is the first company bringing space into the classroom and the classroom into space. Uniquely positioned to inspire kids globally and engage them through scientific discoveries in space, DreamUp aims to foster an educational community where space-based research and projects will be available to all learners of all ages. DreamUp has a proven track record with more than 400 student research payloads from around the world launched on SpaceX and Northrop Grumman rockets to the International Space Station via a partnership with Nanoracks and its Space Act Agreement with NASA. For more information, visit https://www.dreamup.org/.
[ Update: What’s Up: December 2020 Skywatching Tips from NASA – JPL
What are some skywatching highlights in December 2020? Catch the year’s best meteor shower, the Geminids, in the middle of the month. Then witness an extremely close pairing of Jupiter and Saturn that won’t be repeated for decades. And mark the shortest day of the year on the northern winter solstice. Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/whats-up….
Step outside on a cold December night when the stars shine bright to find the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, and Cepheus. They will help you locate a binary star system, a fan-shaped open star cluster, and a variable star. Stay tuned for space-based views of a ragged spiral galaxy, an open star cluster, and an edge-on galaxy.
What can you see in the night sky tonight? Astronomers Pete Lawrence and Paul Abel talk us through the best sights to see in the night sky throughout December 2020, including how to see the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn (03:30) and the Geminid meteor shower (08:48).
** What’s in the Night Sky December 2020#WITNS | Great Conjunction | Solar Eclipse | Geminid Meteors – Alyn Wallace
** The Night Sky & A Telescope – The Night Sky Sights – December 2020 – Richard J. Bartlett
This month, Jupiter and Saturn are at their closest for 400 years, while Mars still shines in the evening hours. The Geminid meteor shower reaches its maximum on the 13th, and we’ll take a closer look at the Pleiades star cluster.
Includes NESDR SMArTee XTR Software Defined Radio, & Everything Else Needed to Receive LRIT, HRIT & HRPT Satellite Weather Images Directly from Space!”
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This GOES Weather Satellite SDR bundle includes a GOES parabolic reflector antenna, NESDR SMArTee XTR SDR receiver, SAWbird+ GOES LNA module, 10m LMR400 cable, and the other cables and adapters required for a full GOES receiver. Just add a host device and software, and you are ready to go
The 21dBi antenna is meant for high gain L-band applications where the antenna is stationary. The center frequency is 1.75GHz, and bandwidth is 200MHz or greater. This encompasses many popular weather satellite applications and constellations
Software is required for the decoding of images. Current options are either free Linux-based decoders or a paid version of XRIT Decoder for Windows (a license is NOT included in this bundle!). A virtual machine can be used for Linux instead of a standalone Linux computer or Raspberry Pi, if preferred.
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Check out out USA-Satcom for news and information on amateur satellite communications.
** What’s Up: November 2020 Skywatching Tips from NASA – NASA JPL
What are some skywatching highlights in November 2020? Cool autumn evenings are a great time to look for the Pleiades star cluster. You’ll also have a couple of great opportunities to observe the Moon with Jupiter and Saturn. Plus, check out the phenomenon known as Earthshine. Additional information about topics covered in this episode of What’s Up, along with still images from the video, and the video transcript, are available at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/whats-up…
In November, hunt for the fainter constellations of fall, including Pisces, Aries, and Triangulum. They will guide you to find several galaxies and a pair of white stars. Stay tuned for space-based views of spiral galaxy M74 and the Triangulum Galaxy, which are shown in visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light.
A sampling of recent articles, press releases, etc. related to student and amateur CubeSat / SmallSat projects and programs (find previous smallsat roundups here):
Intuitive Machines, the company developing the Nova-C, offered Engineering students at Embry-Riddle this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — to design and build a camera system that will deploy from the Nova-C to capture the landing and, in the process, become the first university student project ever to land on the moon.
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Supported by a network of national scientists, Embry-Riddle’s “EagleCam” team — three Engineering professors along with a large interdisciplinary team of students — is designing a camera and communication system, or CubeSat, to launch to the moon and shoot the astronomical selfie. Just before approach, the CubeSat will deploy and freefall 100 feet to the surface to give the world its first glimpse of the spacecraft’s lunar landing.
The creation of Space Force has inspired a renewed interest in space systems research and innovation. In August, the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) received funding from the DOD to lead a project to streamline space technology among Five Eye (FVEY) countries. The project, headed by NPS professors Giovanni Minelli and Wenschel Lan, involves sending up two CubeSats containing experimental technology created by NPS students and New Zealand researchers. The payloads must be ready to launch into orbit by 2022. Once in space, the payloads will communicate with NPS researchers in the new Radio Frequency (RF) Testing Lab that overlooks the Monterey Bay.
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NPS’ Space Labs have also brought elements of space to its students, so they can properly test out their payloads. The CubeSat skeleton is 3D printed, so students don’t have to start completely from scratch. They can carefully create their prototypes, using Raspberry Pi single-board computers in the clean room before testing them out in a variety of situations. For example, students have access to a thermo-pressure chamber and shaking machine that can “shake your teeth out,” according to Lan. They also conduct weather balloon tests to see how payloads respond to orbit-like atmospheric conditions. The goal is to think of everything that could possibly go wrong before actually sending a payload up into space.
** Taiwanese student CubeSat to fly on Momentus’ Vigoride demo mission set for this December: Momentus Announces Service Agreement for Gran Systems NUTSAT – Gran Systems (pdf)
The 2U NUTSAT was designed by the National Formosa University with the backing of the National Space Organization (NSPO) in Taiwan. One of the three NSPO cubesats launching this year, NUTSAT is a systems engineering training education program integrating an ADS-B receiver onto the cubeSat to demonstrate and enhance commercial aviation safety technology. NUTSAT is the first of the three cubesats to go for the launch integration.
** Univ. Colorado CubeSat project among 5 winners of the NGA MAGQUEST contest, which aims to encourage advancements in measurements of the Earth’s magnetic field.
Compact Spaceborne Magnetic Observatory (COSMO) CubeSat (University of Colorado Boulder). A CubeSat specifically designed and tested for magnetic cleanliness and accurate data from a compact form factor. A compact scalar-vector magnetometer designed specifically for CubeSats enables high-quality collection of magnetic field data.
The Milky Way galaxy is in the recycling business. Our galaxy is surrounded by a clumpy halo of hot gases that is continually being supplied with material ejected by birthing or dying stars, according to a NASA-funded study in the journal Nature Astronomy.
A halo is a large region filled with hot gas that surrounds a galaxy, also known as a “circumgalactic medium.” The heated gaseous halo around the Milky Way was the incubator for the Milky Way’s formation some 13 billion years ago and could help solve a longstanding puzzle about where the missing matter of the universe might reside.
The new findings come from observations made by a small spacecraft called HaloSat. It is in a class of minisatellites called CubeSats and is roughly the size of a toaster, measuring 4-by-8-by-12 inches (about 10-by-20-by-30 centimeters) and weighing about 26 pounds (12 kilograms). Built by the University of Iowa, HaloSat was launched from the International Space Station in May 2018 and is the first CubeSat funded by NASA’s Astrophysics Division.
While tiny compared to NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, HaloSat’s X-ray detectors view a much wider piece of the sky at once and therefore are optimized to doing the sort of wide-area survey needed to measure the galactic halo.
Because of their small size, CubeSats allow NASA to conduct low-cost scientific investigations in space. Six CubeSats to date have been selected in this Astrophysics Division series.
In the new study, researchers conclude the circumgalactic medium has a disk-like geometry, based on the intensity of X-ray emissions coming from it.
The Iowa Univ. team and its partners, NASA/GSFC ( Goddard Space Flight Center) and JHU/APL (Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory), focused on developing the scientific instruments while Blue Canyon Technologies built the CubeSat hardware: HaloSat – eoPortal Directory – Satellite Missions
Deployment of HaloSat and NASA JPL’s RainCube from the ISS on July 13th, 2018:
Scientists at CU Boulder are developing a satellite about the size of a toaster oven to explore one of the cosmos’ most fundamental mysteries: How did radiation from stars punch its way out of the first galaxies to fundamentally alter the make-up of the universe as it we know it today.
Those insights will come from the Supernova Remnants and Proxies for ReIonization Testbed Experiment (SPRITE), a NASA-funded mission led by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder.
Scheduled to launch in 2022, the $4 million SPRITE is the latest in LASP’s line of little-spacecraft-that-could. This “CubeSat” will measure just over a foot in length and will weigh about 40 pounds. It will also collect unprecedented data from modern-day stars and supernovas to help scientists better understand a time in the history of the cosmos called the “Epoch of Reionization”—a period in which the universe’s first stars lived fast and hard, burning out and going supernova in a span of just a few million years.
“We’re trying to establish what the universe was like when it first formed and how it evolved to where it is today,” said Brian Fleming, a research professor at LASP who is leading the SPRITE mission.
The team also hopes that SPRITE will show just how much CubeSats can achieve. To date, most of these miniature spacecraft have focused on studying phenomena that are closer to home—such as weather on Earth or flares erupting from the surface of the sun.
“There has been a perception that to do new astrophysics you need to collect a lot of light so you need something big,” said Fleming, also of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences. “SPRITE is trying to do something different. There’s a lot of science you can do by optimizing your design and using new technologies.”
An artist’s rendering of the SPRITE CubeSat in orbit. Credits: LASP
** Neutron-1 CubeSat studies neutrons in low earth orbit as preparation for the LunaH-Map satellite to use neutrons to study distribution of the lunar surface. The neutron detectors on the satellites are developed by a Arizona State University team.
Water ice, or lunar water, is the first evidence that water could exist on the moon and was confirmed to be on the moon by NASA in 2018.
Principal investigator on the project and professor Craig Hardgrove, along with an ASU team, developed a neutron detector that will be integrated with the Neutron-1 3U CubeSat mission led by Lloyd French, a program manager for University of Hawaii at Manoa and co-founder of the Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory.
The neutron detector allows researchers to map neutron abundances in low earth orbit as part of the LunaH-Map mission. The detector will also assist in UHM’s mission to study neutrons while testing its own efficacy for its intended mission.
The LunaH-Map satellite will orbit the moon in search of water ice sources on its surface. The CubeSat mission helps pave the way forLunaH-Map’s next year.
Neutron-1 will be deployed from the ISS late this year. LunaH-Map is currently set to launch in November 2021 and will take about six months to reach the Moon.
The LunaH-Map CubeSat is in development by an Arizona State Univ. team. It will be the first NASA mission designed, built and operated on the ASU Tempe campus. Credit: LunaH-Map/ASU
** Ohio State student built Bobcat-1 CubeSat reached the ISS via the recent Antares/Cygnus cargo mission. When deployed from the station, the CubeSat will study
Measuring approximately 12”x4”x4”, the nanosatellite will be deployed into low-Earth orbit to study Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), like GPS, in an effort to improve the availability and performance of these navigation systems for other satellites and spacecraft.
The satellite is one of 11 small spacecraft designed at American universities selected by NASA’s CubeSat Launch initiative in 2018 to be transported into space. Dr. Sabrina Ugazio, assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science in the Russ College of Engineering and Technology, and four OHIO engineering students developed the nanosatellite and the ground station, located on the Stocker Center roof, that will control and communicate with the spacecraft during its nine-month orbit.
For 3 yrs @russcollege prof Sabrina Ugazio & 4 students designed the 12″x 4″x4″ nanosatellite, Bobcat-1.
Oct. 2 it arrived safely at the International Space Station.
Over the next 9 month it will orbit 250 miles above Earth.
Follows Bobcat-1’s journey @Bobcat1_Cubesat. pic.twitter.com/TjCH943seH
** 2020 AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting:
The 38th AMSAT Space Symposium and Annual General Meeting, held on October 17, 2020 includes updates on AMSAT projects and presentations on amateur satellite technology. For details on presenter names and presentation titles, visit https://www.amsat.org/38th-annual-ams….
0:00:00 Welcome 0:02:07 AMSAT GOLF-TEE System Overview and Development Status 0:43:02 GOLF IHU Coordination 1:19:10 GOLF Downlink Coordination 1:50:15 FUNcube Next 2:13:50 LunART – Luna Amateur Radio Transponder 2:45:35CatSat HF Experiment Overview 3:13:30 Neutron-1 CubeSat 3:39:58 Progress and Development of Open Source Electric Propulsion for Nanosats and Picosats 4:15:00 AMSAT Education 5:14:00 ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) / AREx (Amateur Radio Exploration) 6:14:00 AMSAT Engineering 7:21:16 AMSAT Annual General Meeting
** Overview of the NASA TROPICS CubeSat Constellation Mission
Lecture: Overview of the NASA TROPICS CubeSat Constellation Mission Speaker: William Blackwell, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, USA [2020 IEEE GRSS & ISPRS] Young Professionals & Student Consortium Summer Schoo
