A space mission that welcomes students onboard – ASU News Now

April 28, 2022

The Psyche mission a four-year journey to a metal-rich asteroid expected to launch in August and that could provide clues into the formation of planets is Arizona State Universitys first deep-space NASA mission.

But from the moment thePsyche mission was awarded to her team in 2017, Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton knew she wanted to make Psyche mission accessible to students throughout the country.

Space exploration, she said, is for everyone.

Not all colleges and universities are involved in space missions, said Elkins-Tanton, a Regents Professor in ASUs School of Earth and Space Exploration and vice president of the Interplanetary Initiative. So, of course we want to share the excitement and inspiration.

That vision has led to this moment: a Psyche Student Collaborations program providing multiple entry points for undergraduate students and lifelong learners to get involved.

Psyche Student Collaborations comprises four efforts: Psyche Capstone Projects, Psyche Inspired artworks, Psyche science outreach interns and docents, and the Innovation Toolkit free online courses. To date, more than 1,200 students from around the country have participated in the undergraduate student programs, along with more than 3,000 lifelong learners who have enrolled in the Innovation Toolkit online courses.

Its like a nationwide collaborative effort, which is really cool, said Aws Al-Shalash, senior design coordinator in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Tyler.

Ive never seen anything like it, said Dean Lewis, assistant teaching professor and mechanical engineering academic coordinator at Penn State Erie, the Behrend College. I can tell you, some of our students have been pretty psyched.

Forgive the pun. Its the work that counts.

The execution of Elkins-Tantons idea was left to Cassie Bowman, a Psyche mission co-investigator and an associate research professor in ASUs School of Earth and Space Exploration.

To kick off a year of pilot programs, in summer 2017 Bowman began digging into relevant published research and cold-calling ASU faculty to see if they had courses and students who wanted to work with Psyche.

Thats what I love about ASU, Bowman said. Everyone was like, Sure, why not? Lets try it.

By fall 2017, the ASU-only pilot efforts were in place for all four programs, involving 75 undergraduates in capstone-style projects, 13 Psyche Inspired creative interns and six outreach docents and interns as well as efforts underway with EdPlus at ASU on developing the first of the Innovation Toolkit online course.

In Psyche Inspired, 13 ASU undergraduates from 13 different majors were selected to participate in the inaugural class. They submitted unique artistic interpretations of the emotions surrounding the Psyche mission.

Caralie Cedarleaf, then a senior majoring in sculpture, created a cast-iron sculpture called Metal World in the foundry at the School of Art.

It was so cool I decided I wanted to do it, Cedarleaf said.

"Metal World" by Caralie Cedarleaf

Isaac Wisdom, then a freshman double-majoring in music and electrical engineering (I just knew I wanted to study both.) composed three instrumental pieces, each of which reflected a different moment in Psyches stories. The pieces were entitled, Ideas, Construction and Journey.

Each part of the mission will have its own feeling associated with it, Wisdom said. Ultimately, I think music is emotionally based.

Getting ASU students involved, however, was just the first step. As Elkins-Tanton said, she wanted other universities to be involved in the mission.

For Psyche Inspired a program to create artworks inspired by the mission to go national, the team amassed a local and national email list of groups engaged with undergraduates, blasting out the application to as many eligible students and institutions as possible. NASA newsletter and social media accounts helped as well, yielding a class of 15 interns from nine institutions and a mix of majors in STEM and the arts and humanities. The annual process continues today, and selected interns meet with Psyche Inspired staff and guest speakers for an hour each week to learn about the mission and plan their four creative works for the year.

For Psyche Capstone, the largest of the student collaborations programs, the push toward national participation began in June 2018 when Bowman went to the Capstone Design Conference in Rochester, New York, and told as many university representatives as she could that ASU wanted to work with students nationally on Psyche-related capstone projects.

Word of mouth, Bowman said, which has led to the participation of more than 1,000 undergraduates from 16 universities so far.

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A space mission that welcomes students onboard - ASU News Now