Kentucky Space

Kentucky to reach orbit in 2008!

2008 should be the year Kentucky reaches space! KySat learned and continues to learn from Space Express and will apply that knowledge as Kentucky's space program targets orbit. Thanks for reading KySat Online in 2007 and, please, continue reading in the coming year. Space education and the work of the student design teams working on the commonwealth's first satellite will be amply covered. So keep it here.

This IS rocket science.

Wayne

Calling Kentucky space, science educators!

Because one of the goals of KySat Online is to connect students with the space sciences, I scan quite a bit of space-related information everyday to find stories and images to post to KySat Online.

I can use your help. Please leave a comment here, or, if you'd prefer, email me at wayne@autography.net with suggested stories. I want to be sure that what I'm writing can help you reach your students.

I've also added a space education link roll on the right side of the blog that I hope will appeal to the educational community in the commonwealth. The initial list - see the blog if you're reading this in a feed reader - links to some of the best space imagery on the web, which as I mentioned on Friday, always attracted me when I was in school. Of course, then, the source then was a battered Encyclopedia Britannica in the back of the room. A lot has changed.

Teachers, where do you go for inspiration? Tell me and I'll drop your suggestions into the link roll. Check back often to see new items or simply take the feed. If you don't use feeds to keep up with the torrent of information available today, let me know. I'd be thrilled to help you learn what they are and how to use them.

Wayne

Space stories to watch in 2008

What are the space stories to watch in 2008? From Virgin Galactic to SpaceX's Falcon launch vehicle to the future of the COTS, Constellation and Shuttle programs, the next year could be momentous, according to Ron Coppinger, who also lists the issues in the remaining days of 2007 here.

Wayne

"Alone with the Giant"

I'm posting the latest release from CICLOPS just because it's so beautiful. Can you spot Epimetheus in the  picture?

Teachers, the great thing about the images from CICLOPS and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter imaging team, HiRISE, is that with simple credit - like the line found at the bottom of this image - the pictures may be freely used. I bet like me many years ago, there is a student in your class to whom these kinds of images would really speak.

Wayne

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

CubeSat program: "Pollux"

The Falls Church News Press makes note of this CubeSat project in Virginia:

Chantilly Academy, one of six high school academies within Fairfax County Public Schools, has developed a formal education partnership with the Naval Center for Space Technologies at the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., to support and expand pre-collegiate engineering education at the academy. This year, the academy is offering Independent Research–Engineering as a pilot course for selected seniors who have completed Engineering Systems 1 and 2.

Of the eight seniors currently placed in mentorship for independent research, four female students are the leading systems engineers for a fall 2009 launch of a Naval Research Laboratory CubeSat satellite project “Pollux” at the Naval Center for Space Technologies. The NRL has placed a satellite ground station in the engineering laboratory classroom at Chantilly Academy to monitor and gather data on a satellite currently in orbit.

KySat readers, I've created a category for CubeSat posts in the category list, right side of the blog, to capture other small sat and CubeSat projects as they are mentioned on KySat online.

Wayne

Space journalist Zimmerman on Space Show

In a wide-ranging interview discussing everything from Apollo 8, to Hubble, to the moon plans of India and China, space journalist Robert Zimmerman appeared on The Space Show on December 24. HobbySpace runs down the lineup for the week's broadcasts here.

Wayne

"Santa Claus craters"

Sure it's a stretch, but what do you expect on the day before Christmas? Click the image for a much larger version.

Back on  Wednesday,

Wayne

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Chute for Mars, Virgin Galactic and cubesats

Space Access has announced plans to take tourists to sub-orbit beginning in 2011, according to Personal Spaceflight. The company plans to use something called an Ejector Ramjet for propulsion.

Also at Personal Spaceflight: Virgin Galactic will unveil successors to SpaceShipOne and White Knight on January 23 at the Museum of Natural History. Interestingly:

Among the additional details to come out at that event: the use of the system to launch small satellites and how the research that has gone into the project 'can benefit other airlines'.

A "CubeSat" keyword search turned up some photos on Flickr, many of which are related to the 2005 engineering of a CubeSat at the University of Kansas. I'm not sure, but I believe that payload was aboard a July 2006 Dnepr launch that failed to reach orbit.

The Space Exploration Group at Flickr has quite a number of nice first-hand pictures of rockets, launches and the community appears to be quite active.

According to Space Prizes, the 2008 Space Elevator Games will be much more difficult, featuring a 1Km climb (10x higher than 2007), as well as $2million in prize money.

The 34th edition of the Carnival of Space is being hosted at Spaceflight.

The image above is the deployment of a chute designed for the Mars Science Laboratory inside the world's largest wind tunnel at NASA Ames. Credit: NASA/JPL, Pioneer Aerospace

Wayne

Murray Ledger and Times: "This IS Rocket Science"

The Murray Ledger and Times on Monday published a piece on the participation of Amber-Rose White and Keith Bux in the KySat Space Express mission. The online article includes a couple of photos of Amber-Rose and Keith holding the dart (capsule), into which the student designed electronics have been integrated.

As always, please send along news about KySat and student participants and I'll be sure to link to it. My email address can be found in the right hand column of the blog.

And if you haven't seen it, check out the launch video. Thanks Tyler for assembling the file and getting it on YouTube!

Wayne

Swisscube

Here's a well done story about a Swiss CubeSat team produced by the European Space Agency and uploaded to YouTube just last week.