FormerDMACC Boone Campusstudent Pedro Salazar of Des Moines and currentDMACC Ankeny Campusstudent Mehmet Sefer of Ames, have been selected for yet another NASA project. Salazar, a 2015 graduate of Des Moines East High School, and Sefer, a 2018 graduate ofHorizon International School of Uganda,were most recently each chosen as a 2020-2021 NASA Lucy Student Pipeline Accelerator and Competency Enabler (LSPACE) Lucy Ambassador. The virtual program was designed around NASAs upcoming 2021Lucy mission.

Salazar, who just graduated from the DMACC Boone Campus, said Lucy will be the first space mission to explore a population of small asteroids known as the Trojans. The Trojans, orbiting the Sun, provide a unique, never-before-explored sample of the remnants of our early Solar System. The mission takes its name from the fossilized human ancestor (called Lucy by her discoverers) whose skeleton provided unique insight into humanitys evolution.

Earlier, he was named a Summer 2020 NASA internship recipient chosen to participate in the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, CA.

During the fall 2019 semester, Salazar was chosen to work for 12-weeks at theLSPACE Virtual Academy.

In addition, he has also completed the NCAS (Nasa Community Aerospace Scholars) program.

Im very excited for Pedro! He continues to volunteer his time, energies and talent in amazing ways, said DMACC Boone Campus Physics and Math Professor Dr. Nancy Woods.

Salazar and Sefer said they have been having biweekly Zoom meetings with Sheri Klug Boonstra, Director of the NASA LSPACE Program; Dann Garcia, Deputy Director of the NASA LSPACE Program and Katherine Kretke, Lucy Team Liaison Researcher at Southwest Research Institute since mid-July.

As Lucy Ambassadors, Sefer and Salazar are two of about 70 students who take part in these discussions focusing on an overview of the Lucy Mission, its expectations and resources.

They are referred to as Ambassadors for the NASA Lucy Mission to the Trojan Asteroids.

Salazar said his one-year commitment as a Lucy Ambassador means he is responsible for three outreach events during the year.

The presentations can last anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour each, Salazar said. I hope to conduct at least one in Spanish so the Hispanic community can be informed, too, of what is happening with the Lucy Mission.

Salazar admits he has followed NASA his entire life.

As a kid I looked up to NASA because they never stopped asking questions, Salazar said. Curiosity is something we all share, and the Lucy Mission is just that, looking for answers about the solar system history, what are the asteroids really made of and what do they look like.

Sefer will be a second-year DMACC Liberal Arts student in the fall and enrolled in the Admission Partnership Program between DMACC and Iowa State University, where he plans to major in Aerospace Engineering.

Sefer, too, said he has been invited to participate in several NASA programs. Earlier this year, he was selected as a NASA LSPACE Mission Concept Academy participant. His eight-member team selected him as project manager. Under his leadership, Sefer said the team developed a ten kilogram lander which will investigate the polar ice on the Lunar South Pole. His team also submitted a 190-page proposal, which is being reviewed by NASA.

In addition, Sefer was selected as a member of the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge, where the participating teams were required to design and build a human-powered rover by considering unusual Lunar and Martian surfaces.

Sefer said as part of his role as a Lucy Ambassador he will be talking about theLucy Mission and the future of the space industry.

I will be trained by NASA administrators in the fields of Science Communication strategies, tactics and time management, Sefer said.

He said hes excited about where this next round of space exploration is heading.

Under the leadership of NASA, exploration in this new area of space will give us deeper information about our Solar System and lay the foundations for the next research, Sefer said. To go even further in space, NASA is going back in time and following the traces of the birth of our Solar System.

Sefer and Salazar both said they hope to be able to attend the launch in October 2021.

I feel that as an ambassador, I will have a voice to help recruit more students into the LSPACE Academy, the Lucy mission and NASA in general, Salazar said. I want to show other students that even during these difficult times, they can participate in diverse NASA programs.

For more on the Lucy mission, click here.

(contributed article and photos, DMACC)

Excerpt from:

A Present and a Former DMACC Have Been Selected as NASA L'Space-Lucy Ambassadors - kwbg.com