Category Archives: Education

Education, Space Systems

A Space Technology course in MOOC competition

The MOOC Production Fellowship competition will provide 25000 Euro to each of the ten winning MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) programs out of the 200 that have entered. The winners will be determined by online voting. Anyone may vote for the contestants until May 23rd. The winning courses will be offered for free at the iversity online learning site.

I received a message from Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Berlin, Institute of Technology about their  Space Technology  entry in the competition. The course has no prerequisites “other than a basic understanding of maths”.

The course “Space Technology” covers the fundamentals of space engineering, as well as further related subjects like space law, space politics or management of a space project.

At first, a brief introduction of our solar system and the space environment will give an idea about the destination space. On a trip to space, one has to expect an extremely harsh environment with vacuum, zero-gravity, deadly radiation, micrometeoroids and extreme temperatures. Still, space engineering enables spacecraft and humans to survive under these conditions.

Most of today’s space applications are based on satellites. Therefore, a focus will be set on satellites and their subsystems. Here, subjects like mechanical structures, thermal control, electrical power systems, attitude determination and control, data management and communications will be introduced using a mixture of theory and real mission examples.

One of the most fascinating sectors of space technology is human space flight. A section will be devoted to human spaceflight. In this section several topics like life support systems, astronaut training and space stations will be addressed.

Continue…

This video also describes the course:

Contests and Games, DIY space, Education

Competing in the International Space Apps Challenge

I recently pointed here to the International Space Apps Challenge  program, which aims to encourage “collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing relevant open-source solutions to address global needs applicable to both life on Earth and life in space”.  Stephen Murphey interviewed one of the competitors, Pablo Carranza Vélez, about his project, which involved “using the Raspberry Pi to create a space worth redundant computer”: How the International Space Apps Challenges Creates Innovation – DIY Space Exploration.

Education, Rockets, Space books

The Rocket Company: Chapter 5 + Free ebook today

I have been offering a serialization of the updated version of the book The Rocket Company by Patrick J. G. Stiennon and David M. Hoerr, with illustrations by Doug Birkholz.  This week you can obtain the following chapters of the book:

Download these within the next week. Only four chapters will be available at any one time.

** The electronic version of the updated book is available today for free at  The Rocket Company eBook by Patrick Stiennon, David Hoerr, Peter Diamandis, Doug Birkhol: Kindle Store/Amazon.com.

Education, Rockets, Space participation

Galactic Unite lesson plans based on Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo test flights

Yesterday. Virgin Galactic‘s SpaceShipTwo (SS2)vehicle made its first rocket powered test flight. VG has created an education program called Galactic Unite with STEM lesson plans based around the SS2 test flights: Galactic Unite Lesson Plans are now live! – Virgin Galactic

Galactic Unite Lesson Plans are now live!

Virgin Galactic and Galactic Unite announce the first of their lesson plans and resources!

These aim to engage and inspire educators and students around Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo test flight milestones.

These aim to engage and inspire educators and students around Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo test flight milestones. You can now download free lesson plans, activities and resources from http://virg.in/zUehN , which are pitched at students aged 5-18. Teachers can use these to enhance technology and engineering lessons, as well as help develop aerospace career paths for students around the world. We hope this encourages many more fledgling rocket scientists out there to reach for the stars!

Stay tuned for more exciting news about Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo and our educational programs via our Galactic Unite website or Virgin Galactic website, Twitter and Facebook.

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And here is a description of the lesson plans at  Virgin Unite – Galactic Unite:

Galactic Unite Lessons Plans for Educators

Virgin Galactic and Galactic Unite announce the first of their lesson plans and resources!

These aim to engage and inspire educators and students around Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo test flight milestones. You can now download free lesson plans, activities and resources below, which are pitched at students aged 5-18. Teachers can use these to enhance technology and engineering lessons, as well as help develop aerospace career paths for students around the world. We hope this encourages many more fledgling rocket scientists out there to reach for the stars!

The lesson plans are available here:

Lesson Plan #1: Paper Airplane Designs for Safe Landings 
As with the glider test flights of SpaceShipTwo, the most important part to ensure a successful mission is the ability to secure a safe landing.  Test a design’s effect on an aircraft’s landing ability with the first lesson plan ‘Paper Airplane Designs for Safe Landings’ where students will create different paper airplane designs, test and study them, to see which ones land the safest.

Lesson Plan #2: WhiteKnightTwo
In the second lesson plan, explore all the ins-and-outs of WhiteKnightTwo, one of the most unique aircrafts in the skies!

Lesson Plan #3: The Design and Test Flight Milestones of SpaceShipTwo
There are a lot of steps you have to take before you can go into space! In the third lesson plan, follow the timeline of SpaceShipTwo from design, to building the aircraft, and successful test flights.

Lesson Plan #4: Careers in Aerospace
Space exploration and commercial space travel is a growing field.  In this final lesson plan, students will learn about potential careers in aerospace.

Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Test Flight Lesson Plans Student Survey

Stay tuned for more exciting news about Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo and our educational programs via our Galactic Unite website or  Virgin Galactic website, Twitter and Facebook.

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A video of yesterday’s SS2 flight:

Education, Eyes in the Sky, Space participation

Video: Students take EarthKAM images from ISS

This NASA video presents the EarthKAM program, which lets students control a camera on the International Space Station to take images of the earth.

Caption:

Since the earliest days of the space program, astronauts have taken photos of the Earth from space to capture the beauty of the planet and to document the impacts of man-made and natural events. While only a small percentage of people are fortunate enough to witness this view firsthand, since 2001 the EarthKAM investigation has enabled students to remotely program a camera positioned in an Earth-facing window of the International Space Station and capture their own photographs of the world from space.

Space Station Live commentator Pat Ryan recently spoke with several EarthKAM participants to learn more about how teachers and students are using this experiment to study our home planet.

Dave Curry, an 8th grade Earth and space science teacher at Holland Middle School in Holland, Pa., has incorporated EarthKAM in his classroom every year since 2006. Curry was drawn to the program because it allowed kids to get involved in doing something themselves and seeing a result from that. As Curry pointed out, “Middle school is really an age where we try to hook kids on science.”

Two of Curry’s students, Alison Castronuovo and Andrew Harman, shared with Space Station Live viewers some of the photos they captured from the station and the things they learned from studying these images. The students found more than they initially expected, because as Alison explained, “I never expected all that detail.”

View Alison’s EarthKAM photo: http://images.earthkam.ucsd.edu/main….
View Andrew’s EarthKAM photo: http://images.earthkam.ucsd.edu/main….

Teachers interested in incorporating EarthKAM into their own classrooms are invited to visit the EarthKAM site and sign up for the next mission.

https://earthkam.ucsd.edu/home