STEM Engagement at NASA – Page 4

Calling All Innovators: Apply for NASA’s 2025 Lunabotics Challenge

August 8, 2024 NeRD

A college team dressed in protective clean room suits prepares their robotic rover to compete in the final round of NASA’s annual Lunabotics competition on Thursday, May 16, 2024. Teams score points when their rover completes challenging tasks inside the Artemis Arena – a simulated lunar landscape inside The Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Center for Space Education at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. NASA/Derrol Nail NASA invites teams from colleges, universities, as well as technical and vocational schools around the country to test their engineering skills in the 2025…

When Teachers Become the Students: Educators Spend Summer Studying STEM Engagement at Johnson

August 5, 2024 NeRD

The summer months are usually a time for teachers to take a break from the classroom and enjoy some well-earned rest. But at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, two experienced educators dedicated their summer vacations to learning how to enrich their students’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and inspire them to achieve their dreams. Johnson’s Office of STEM Engagement (OSTEM) welcomed Jerry “Denise” Dunn and Shawnda Folsom as full-time interns for the summer. Both women came to Johnson through the Oklahoma Space Grant Consortium, which not only…

NASA Engagement Platform Brings Experts to Classrooms, Communities

August 5, 2024 NeRD

NASA Technical Group Supervisor for Sequence Planning and Execution and Tactical Mission Lead for the Mars Perseverance rover, Diana Trujillo, speaks to students at Rolling Terrace Elementary School, Monday, March 13, 2023, in Takoma Park, Maryland. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani) NASA/Aubrey Gemignani With a new school year on the horizon, NASA is introducing a platform to connect communities with agency experts to share their experiences working on agency missions and programs for the benefit of humanity. Continuing a long-standing tradition of connecting the public with science, technology, engineering, and math,…

The Future is Bright: Johnson Space Center Interns Shine Throughout Summer Term

July 24, 2024 NeRD

More than 100 interns supported operations at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston this summer, each making an important impact on the agency’s mission success. Get to know seven stellar interns nominated by their mentors for their hard work and outstanding contributions. Stella Alcorn stands inside the Orion mockup within Johnson Space Center’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility. Stella Alcorn Assignment: Engineering Directorate, Guidance, Navigation, and Control Autonomous Flight Systems Branch, Orion Program Education: Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Purdue University; graduating May 2026 Proudest internship accomplishment: Learning a new software program…

NASA Awards Support STEM Research at Minority Serving Institutions

July 1, 2024 NeRD

A photo of MPLAN principal investigator awardees from various minority-serving institutions at the 2023 NASA Better Together conference in San Jose, California. Credits: NASA NASA has selected 23 minority-serving institutions to receive $1.2 million to grow their research and technology capabilities, collaborate on research projects, and contribute to the agency’s missions for the benefit of humanity. Through NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) Partnership Learning Annual Notification (MPLAN) award, selected institutions will receive up to $50,000 each for a six-month period to work directly on STEM projects with…

NASA Celebrates 10 Years of Human Spaceflight’s NExT Pioneers

June 27, 2024 NeRD

Experienced spacewalkers, university students, flight controllers, and NASA team members at all stages of their career recently came together at Johnson Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) for an anniversary celebration that looked to the future as much as the past. The Office of STEM Engagement’s Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams (Micro-g NExT) marked a decade of inspiring the next generation of space explorers with four days of exciting hands-on experiences and events commemorating those who have shaped the annual challenge. Students pose at NASA Johnson’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory…

South Central US Students to Hear from NASA Astronaut Aboard Station

June 21, 2024 NeRD

(April 8, 2024) NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps uses a camera in the International Space Station’s cupola to take photographs of the Moon’s shadow umbra as a total solar eclipse moves across Earth’s surface during Expedition 71. Credits: NASA/Matthew Dominick Students from Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas will have an opportunity to hear from a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station. The 20-minute Earth-to-space call will stream live at 9:10 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, June 26, on NASA+, NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Learn how to stream…

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility to Launch Student Experiments

June 14, 2024 NeRD

4 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) A Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket carrying students experiments for the RockOn! mission successfully launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Aug. 17, 2023 at 6 a.m. EDT. NASA/ Kyle Hoppes More than 50 student and faculty teams are sending experiments into space as part of NASA’s RockOn and RockSat-C student flight programs. The annual student mission, “RockOn,” is scheduled to launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, on a Terrier-Improved Orion sounding rocket Thursday, June 20, with a launch window that opens…

Lakita Lowe: Leading Space Commercialization Innovations and Fostering STEM Engagement

June 12, 2024 NeRD

Lakita Lowe is at the forefront of space commercialization, seamlessly merging scientific expertise with visionary leadership to propel NASA’s commercial ambitions and ignite a passion for STEM in future generations. As a project integrator for NASA’s Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program (CLDP), Lowe leverages her extensive background in scientific research and biomedical studies to bridge the gap between science and commercial innovation. Lowe recently supported both planning and real-time operations contributing to the successful completion of the Axiom-3 private astronaut mission which launched in January 2024 and is gearing…

NASA Supports California Students Aiming to Advance Technology

June 12, 2024 NeRD

2 min read Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater) Brad Flick, center director at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, talks to students from California State University, Northridge, California. As part of the university’s Autonomy Research Center for science, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship, arts, humanities, and mathematics, the students displayed posters and answered questions about their technologies May 23 at the Air Force Test Pilot School auditorium on Edwards Air Force Base, California. NASA/Steve Freeman Students from a minority-serving university in California are helping solve challenges of…