Category Archives: Space Exploration

The open-mouthed wow factor that space travel creates was brought to children in East Topeka this week as part of a Space Camp that included meeting NASA professional Herb Baker and former NFL football player Joe Mays.

Kia McClain, a Topekan chosen last year to be a social media influencer for NASAs Mars journey, reached out to the Neighborhood Opportunity for Wellness program to bring the space event to the Highland Park neighborhoods.

More than 100 kids showed up from the NOW initiative neighborhoods at Deer Creek, Pine Ridge Manor and Echo Ridge when the camp started this week, McClain said.

(My favorite part of camp) has been trying on the space outfit from the astronaut that came out, camper LaDaysha Baird said. I like to dress up.

The camp was supported by multiple agencies, McClain said, including United Way of Greater Topeka. In her work with NASA, McClain reached out to Baker, who retired from NASA after 42 years working in operation support, most often at the Johnson Space Center.

For Baker, it was a joy to share his love of NASA and space.

My whole life almost has been involved with NASA, he said, explaining that even before pursuing a career there, he went to middle school near Johnson and his friends had parents who went to space. His friends who were astronauts talk about the first time they were intrigued by the idea of becoming astronauts.

There might be one kid here who gets to put that spacesuit on and it changes their lives, Baker said. Thats kind of what Im hoping for.

A real NASA spacesuit and the opportunity to try it on was just one of many events that occurred during the five-day evening camp.

For McClain, a social media expert, the camp gave her the chance to share her own excitement about her NASA connection with children, and she did so by reaching out to numerous partners. Two of those were Joe and Toiya Mays who own the Laya Center in Kansas City, Mo., a holistic spa that has been working with THA around community gardens and aquaponics.

One of the kids favorite events was when Toiya Mays showed them how knowledge of natural health can be used to create medicines and foods, McClain said. For instance, the kids were able to learn about making a natural cough medicine by putting elderberries in 90-proof alcohol or making natural Hawaiian Punch using hibiscus flowers.

Joe Mays shared about the rigorous training and healthy eating necessary to playing in the NFL, and how that same type of fitness would be important for astronauts, McClain said.

The children were wonderful little sponges that were open to not only learning how technology relates to healthcare, but were intrigued by a healthier way of life, Toiya Mays said. We explained the importance of maintaining good eating habits and how eating fruits and veggies is a direct link to energy in a holistic way. They had fun showing us their Pucker Faces during the lime &energy test where we showed a video of the actual electricity currents that come from a Key lime.

The Mays also helped set up a hibernation chamber simulator, where they created a small nook blocked off by cardboard and cooled by a portable cryotherapy machine the Laya Center uses.

This cooled the room and made it similar to what astronauts would experience during a 4-8 month trip to Mars, Toiya Mays said. It was a huge hit!

Although the official space camp portion of the event is over, McClain is working with the NOW program, United Way and THA to continue events weekly throughout the year.

Its the kick-off to major opportunities involving NASA, involving all of these partners that are at the table and just creating future opportunities for the children to go far beyond Topeka, McClain said.

Online editor J.C. Reeves contributed to this report.

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Topeka children's imaginations take flight at the Exploration Mars Space Camp - Topeka Capital Journal

William G. Bessler

A few weeks ago, like millions of other Americans, I attended a local Fourth of July parade and later watched the fireworks. While wandering around both events, something struck me that no controversial parade float could match.

It was subtle. In fact, without an interest in the subject, most people would have missed it entirely. Countless children were proudly wearing a shirt with the NASA logo or a space shuttle design. This observation persuades me to urge a robust American space policy.

Although finding the exact payoff for every dollar spent on NASA has been elusive, many economic studies show a positive return. NASA projects typically demand people with advanced skills in science and technology, thus supporting thousands of high-paying jobs. With nearly $20 billion spent on NASA per year, those dollars support communities across the country. Even places without a NASA facility have businesses designing or creating parts for Americas space effort.

Thousands of NASA spinoff technologies have dramatically changed the health care, information technology and communication fields.

Yet the economic, technological and scientific advances pale in comparison to the intangible benefits of space exploration. Space inspires children across the globe to become the next generation of thinkers and innovators. Many inspired by space exploration pursue careers in STEM fields, bringing valuable skills to space centers, businesses, factories and farmlands across America. Exploring the final frontier also impresses the value of working together toward a common goal that is bigger than any individual. Rugged individualism does not typically lead to great triumphs, but collective action does.

As I watched the Independence Day fireworks, I couldn't help but wonder how many of those kids wearing a NASA shirt would help enable economic prosperity, a scientific breakthrough or exploration of a distant world someday.

William G. Bessler

Bartonville

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Letter: The Final Frontier's greatest impact - Peoria Journal Star

Set to be launched in 2018 from Kourou, French Guiana, the JWST will embark on a journey to unravel the universes mysteries, "from discovering the first stars and galaxies" to "studying the atmospheres of alien planets around other stars."

NASA called, and the Webb telescope responded. NASAs James Webb Space Telescope recently completed its Ground Segment Test Number 1 (GSEG-1), for the first time confirming successful end-to-end communication between the telescope and its mission operations center.

The Deep Space Network comprises three ground stations located about 120 degrees apart on Earth one each in Canberra, Australia; Madrid, Spain; and Goldstone, California. This photo shows an antenna at the DSN site in California.

GSEG-1, which completed on June 20, tested all of the communications systems required to support the telescopes launch, commissioning and normal operations once it is in orbit. The test showed successful end-to-end communication between the Webb telescopes spacecraft bus, currently located at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Redondo Beach, California, and the telescopes mission operations center at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

Before this test, the flight operations team had only verified communication with the telescope piecemeal in several smaller tests that were not end-to-end.

During the test, the team sent the same command procedures to the telescope that will be sent during its nearly 1 million mile journey to its orbit at the second Lagrange point, known as L2. The team verified the configuration of the telescopes onboard computers and also received telemetry from the telescope, including science data and health monitoring data.

This is a great milestone not only for the telescope but for the industry team, who worked seamlessly together from coast to coast to successfully complete the GSEG-1, said Scott Willoughby, Northrop Grumman vice president and program manager for the Webb telescope. This test puts us one step closer in preparing for the Webb telescope for launch.

The ground segment test consisted of two parts the Space Network (SN) portion and the Deep Space Network (DSN) portion.

The eighthourlong SN portion of the test, completed May 24, tested all of the communications systems required during Webbs launch phase. During this portion of the test, the team successfully exchanged commands and telemetry with the telescope using NASAs Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) network.

The 13hourlong DSN portion of the test, completed June 20, tested communications systems that will be used from the end of Webbs launch phase through the end of the mission. During this portion of the test, the team successfully exchanged commands, telemetry and ranging data with the telescope, as well as offloaded information from the telescopes data recorders.

DSN is our workhorse for the life of the mission, said Alan Johns. It got tested at every rate, every setting, and every possible permutation, and it worked just great.

The DSN comprises three ground stations, located about 120 longitudinal degrees apart from each other on Earth one each in Canberra, Australia; Madrid, Spain; and Goldstone, California. The placement of these guarantees the Webb telescope will be able to contact at least one station at all times, to remain in constant communication with Earth. For this test, the telescope communicated with a specially designed trailer that mimics these ground stations, rather than the ground stations themselves.

The success of the test did not catch Johns off guard. I felt pretty good that this test was going to be as successful as it turned out to be, Johns said. A lot of people put in a lot of hours, and the thoroughness that goes into checking every command parameter and every telemetry point paid off in the actual execution of the test.

Another communications test will take place at the telescopes planned launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, about a month before launch in late 2018. This test will demonstrate the expected connectivity with the telescope at first contact with it, which will occur approximately three-and-a-half minutes after launch.

NASAs James Webb Space Telescope is the worlds most advanced space observatory. This engineering marvel is designed to unravel some of the greatest mysteries of the universe, from discovering the first stars and galaxies that formed after the big bang to studying the atmospheres of planets around other stars. It is a joint project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

The Daily Galaxy via NASA/JWST

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'All Systems Go' for James Webb Telescope --"A Great Milestone for the Next Epoch in Space Exploration" - The Daily Galaxy (blog)

Filling the void: Luxembourg leads the way in Europe by regulating the ownership of space resources

The law of 20 July 2017 on the exploration and use of space resources (the Space Law), as adopted by the Luxembourg Parliament on 13 July 2017 and effective from 1 August 2017, creates a licensing and supervisory regime in Luxembourg addressing the ownership of resources acquired in space. Similar to the US Commercial Space Launch and Competitiveness Act, the Space Law provides that commercial companies operating within its regulatory framework may legally appropriate resources acquired in space from celestial bodies known as Near Earth Objects (NEOs). Notably, the Space Law does not apply to satellite communications, orbital positions or the use of frequency bands.

Luxembourg is the first European country to adopt legislation regulating the ownership of resources acquired in space by commercial companies, providing legal certainty for commercial projects in the space sector. The Outer Space Treaty (OST) dating back to 1967, signed by 107 countries including Luxembourg, established principles for the peaceful and free exploration of space by nation states. However, OST does not address the ownership by private organisations of the resources harvested from NEOs by, for example, asteroid mining, including metals, minerals, and gases.

Legal certainty and clear guidelines: the Space Law

The Space Law sets out a number of requirements for a commercial company seeking to rely on Luxembourgs regulatory framework in order to appropriate space resources (the Operator). The main ones are listed below:

Luxembourgs larger investment in space exploration and asteroid mining

The Space Law is not a solitary act, but part of a larger strategy by the Luxembourg government to establish the Grand Duchy as Europes space exploration and research hub. A member of the European Space Agency since 2005, Luxembourg recognises the lucrative potential of the untapped resources of space and has launched the national SpaceResources.lu initiative aimed at creating the ideal legal, regulatory and business landscape for a flourishing space exploration economy in Luxembourg.

In a push to diversify Luxembourgs investment funds and banking dominated economy and establish Luxembourg as the European centre of the asteroid mining business, the government has committed 200 million euros to SpaceResources.lu to help fund companies set up space exploration related companies. The funding, as well as Luxembourgs offer to help companies obtain private financing, are designed to entice start-ups and established space mining companies to open their European headquarters in Luxembourg. A number of such companies have already either set up in Luxembourg or partnered with the Luxembourg government to finance their endeavours.

Next Steps

The Luxembourg government states that it is committed to engaging the governments of other countries to establish a global legal framework within the context of the U.N. for the exploration and commercial utilization of resources from NEOs.

Co-operation with European institutions is already taking place, with the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy and the European Investment Bank signing an Advisory Service Agreement to secure advice and guidance of the European Investment Advisory Hub on enhancing access to financing for projects in the context of SpaceResources.lu.

In November, Luxembourg will host the first European edition of an international conference dedicated to space, NewSpace Europe.

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Luxembourg set to become Europe's commercial space exploration hub with new Space Law - Resource World Magazine (press release) (subscription)

Space. The final frontier

Star Trek sure knew how to make people dream about interstellar space travel, and although we may still be lightyears away from travelling to the far corners of our galaxy, NASA and SpaceX have recently announced their plans for several manned missions to Mars, reviving many aspirations for further space travel. But how far can we travel, and will the first boots to land on planet far, far away be those of a human or a robot?

Those answers might be easier to answer than some may expect. Up until today, the only missions to a foreign planet have been by automated space-crafts delivering rovers and other unmanned missions to the surface of Mars. Other craft have been used to gather data about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn as well as the planets themselves. It only makes sense that AI be the first to establish itself on another planet where we are unsure as to the extent of its hospitality potential for a manned mission, much less a space colony.

But at our current capacity, can a manned mission survive a trip to these destinations?

No, it cannot. With current technology it would be hard to send out a crew for such a long period of time. Mars is a feasible target but we must be careful to not bite off more than we can chew; after all space travel is still a very dangerous endeavour, one that will need some refining as we aim to discover more about our universe. The major issue isnt just the amount of time that astronauts will be exposed to, but the amount of resources needed for such a trip and the lack of current spacecraft capable of such long journeys.

Mars proximity is the biggest advantage as far as testing out new technology, and could set the baseline for future manned missions, but until scientists are able to ensure maximum safety and survivability for these modern-day space explorers, manned missions past Mars might not happening until the next century. After all, science fiction has introduced a great deal of technology that could help with such voyages, but most are made up or currently unfeasible such as sleeping pods, hyperspace drives and quality of living in general.

Dont give up hope though! It makes sense for human exploration to extend to the stars, but it just might take a while before we are able to make daring trips to foreign planets.

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Human space exploration, what are the holdbacks? - CosmicNovo.com (Science and Technology)

Nasa is hiring someone who can defend Earth from alien contamination.

The full-time role of planetary protection officer will involve ensuring that humans in space do not contaminate planets and moons, as well as ensuring thatalien matter does not infect Earth.

The pay is a six-figure salary:as much as $187,000 (141,000) a year plus benefits.

The job post reads: Planetary protection is concerned with the avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and roboticspace exploration.

Nasa maintains policies for planetary protection, applicable to all space flight missions that may intentionally or unintentionally carry Earth organisms and organic constituents to the planets or other solar system bodies, and any mission employing spacecraft, which are intended to return to Earth and its biosphere with samples from extraterrestrial targets of exploration.

The three-year position with a chance to extend it to five years wascreated after the US signed the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, vowing to pursue studies of outer space ...and conduct exploration of them so as to avoid their harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter.

There is only one other full-time role like it in the world at the European Space Agency, saysCatharine Conley, Nasas only planetary protection officer since 2014 (according toBusiness Insider).She is relocating to the agencys Office of Safety and Mission Assurance.

Under the international 1967 treaty, she explained that any space mission must have less than a one in 10,000 chance of contaminating an alien world, including making sure a robot or probe that is travelling past or photographing a planet does not cause harm.

Its a moderate level, Ms Conley said. Its not extremely careful, but its not extremely lax.

Trump signs Space Council Executive Order

Similarly, the new employee would work to protect Earth from potential contamination by planets like Mars, which scientists say may haveonce been covered in water andsupported life and there may be chance of life there now.

The new hire will likely be part of the upcoming Nasa expedition to Europa, amoon of Jupiter. The $2.7bn (just over 2bn)Europa Clipper mission, approvedby Congress, plans tomap the moonssurface and analyse whether it could be habitable. The probe could crash land, however, which is a circumstance the planetary protection officer should prepare for.

Candidates will be required to travel frequently but like any job, there will be a significant amount of emails, proposals and other reading.

Candidates must have at least one years experience as a top-level civilian government employee, and an advanced degree in physical science, engineering or mathematics. They must also have advanced knowledge of planetary protection.

The position also requires demonstrated skills in diplomacy that resulted in win-win solutions during extremely difficult and complex multilateral discussions. The new hire will also receive secret security clearance.

Only US citizens and US nationals can apply.

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Nasa offering six-figure salary for new 'planetary protection officer' to defend Earth from aliens - The Independent

Astrosat - New Business Innovation Competition Announced With Space Exploration Masters

Astrosat has teamed with the Huntsville / Madison County Chamber in Alabama to launch a New Business Innovation competition as part of the Space Exploration Masters competition.

The inaugural Space Exploration Masters competition, which was formally announced last month at the Paris Air Show, is targeted at international start-ups, entrepreneurs, researchers, university teams and SMEs. Among its sponsors are the European Space Agency, Airbus and Merck KGaA. The closing date for the competition is September 8, 2017. The Sierra Nevada Corporations Dream Chaser spacecraft is unique, having flown more than 450 space missions in course of which it has delivered over 4,000 products. Entrants to the new business innovation category are required to create a proposal that encompasses the most imaginative use of the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, the reusable automated cargo lifting-body spaceplane, in a commercial venture that goes beyond the shuttles day-to-day use as cargo and crew delivery vehicle to the International Space Station (ISS), or in Earth Observation (EO).

The winner of the New Business Innovation Prize will receive 10,000 euros worth of business analysis from Astrosat as well as food, travel and lodging valued at up to 10,000 euros from the Huntsville Chamber to fund the winners arranged meetings with leading, global aerospace and technology companies. Steve Lee, the CEO of Edinburgh-based Astrosat, said that competitions such as Space Exploration Masters are a fantastic calling card for those who see their future in space. Rather than the usual tried and tested EO challenge, the judges of the new business innovation category will be looking for original thinking, rooted in good commercial sense, and with an eye for detail and imagination that will make the space sector even stronger.

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Satnews Daily - SatNews Publishers

Cosmic Girl, Virgin Orbits specially modified jumbo jet designed to serve as a flying launchpad, touched down Monday afternoon at Long Beach Airport to the delight of those working to help the company join the United States nascent private spaceflight industry.

Were here to redefine the word launchsite. And were here to celebrate that, Virgin Orbit President Dan Hart said after Cosmic Girl had taxied from a Long Beach Airport runway to an audience of Virgin Orbit employees and Long Beach dignitaries.

Cosmic Girl is a Boeing 747-400 jet that, in Harts words, had the perfect name for its new mission. The aircraft already had its moniker while flying passengers in the service of Virgin Atlantic.

Virgin Galactic, the part of the Virgin Group thats focused on eventually letting customers buy a ticket to travel into outer space, acquired Cosmic Girl in late 2015. Virgin Orbit was part of Virgin Galactic before acquiring its own name in March.

Virgin Orbits headquarters is in the Douglas Park area of northeast Long Beach, and Cosmic Girl is a major part of that companys effort to develop a relatively inexpensive method of shooting satellites into orbit. The companys plan is for Cosmic Girl to carry a rocket, dubbed LauncherOne, under its left wing in order to be fired into space while the aircraft is in flight.

Monday signified the first time Cosmic Girl made an appearance in the companys home city.

Virgin Orbit chief engineer Kevin Sagis has been working on Virgin projects leading up to Cosmic Girls modifications for about five years, he said. He was one of the projects first five team members, and said the project subsequently involved the work of some 300 people in laboring over the course of three years.

LauncherOne is still in development. The two-stage rocket is designed to be nearly 70 feet long and to weigh about 55,000 pounds when carrying a full load of fuel and its payload. A launch could cost customers $10 million to $12 million.

For comparison, Hawthornes Space Exploration Technologies, Inc., advertises a $62 million price for a launch on board its Falcon 9 rocket. Virgin Orbits plan is to serve customers using smaller satellites at lower orbits than SpaceXs clients.

About 80 percent of Cosmic Girls upgrades involved mechanical changes enabling the jet to carry LauncherOne, Sagis said. The remainder of the work involved changes to its electrical and fuel systems.

Sagis is hopeful the Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne technologies will lead to applications that improve the lives of human beings on earth. He said he looks forward to companies being able to hire Virgin Orbit to launch satellites that may improve communications networks or weather forecasting.

The reason I came here is I got the opportunity to come in on the ground floor of a very exciting project, he said.

LauncherOne is not yet operational and was not on display Monday afternoon. Hart said in an interview that he expects LauncherOne to be ready for missions by early 2018.

Although Virgin Orbit has not announced a possible date for LauncherOnes first mission, the company has already disclosed a few prospective customers before getting its own name.

In June 2015, Virgin Galactic announced plans for 39 satellite launches for OneWeb, a venture that has declared plans to deploy a constellation of communications satellites in an attempt to make high-speed Internet services available to areas on the planet where online access is presently difficult. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson is a member of OneWebs board of directors.

Another announcement in October 2015 told of a $4.7 million agreement with NASA for a test launch involving multiple satellites. Virgin Galactic reported in September of last year that Australian communications firm Sky and Space Global had contracted for a quartet of LauncherOne missions.

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Cosmic Girl, Virgin Orbit's space launch plane, touches down in Southern California - The Mercury News

Wade Roush

Wade Roush is an independent technology journalist and the host and producer of the podcast Soonish (www.soonishpodcast.org), which explores how the f

Today, theres a boom in space-related innovation and investment not just at big aerospace companies, but at dozens of smaller startups as well.

The Martianby Andy Weir wasnt the first book about space exploration by a non-famous author that got made into a big Hollywood movie. Space-movie buffs know that back in 1998, a former NASA engineer named Homer Hickam wrote a memoir calledRocket Boysthat was made into the 1999 filmOctober Sky, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Laura Dern.

Whats less widely known is that Hickam followed up that success with his first book-length work of fiction, a 1999 cult hit calledBack to the Moon. It was a techno-thriller about a renegade scientist who hijacks a space shuttle and figures out how to fly it all the way to the moon, to gather a rare helium isotope needed as a fuel for nuclear fusion.

I ate up the Hickam novel, both because I was working at NASA at the time and because I was impatient for ouractualreturn to the moon.

To me, the space shuttle was an amazing invention, but it felt like a technological dead end, forever limited (the antics in Hickams book notwithstanding)to low-earth orbit. As an orphan of Apollo born a few years too late to remember NASAs six moon landings between 1969 and 1972 Id been waiting a long time for someone to figure out how well really travel back to the moon and then beyond.

Today were still waiting. Theres some talk within NASA about sending astronauts to orbit the moon aboard the new Orion spacecraft as soon as 2018, some three to five years earlier than previously planned. SpaceX wants to do something similar. But even if those plans pan out, the astronauts wouldnt touch down. And while the European Space Agency has proposed building aMoon Villageto take the place of the International Space Station, which is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2024, theres no timeline for that project yet.

In fact, it looks like the next batch of spacecraft heading to the lunar surface will be the privately operated robotic rovers built by the five teams competing for theGoogle Lunar X Prize. Whichever team is the first to land their rover first, maneuver it 500 meters across the surface, and send back high-definition video pictures will win the $20 million first prize. (The pressure is on since the prize expires after December 31, but after years of delays, all five GLXP teams now have rocket rides reserved.)

And that could be a harbinger of a new era of space exploration led, in large part, by private, non-governmental entities. These days, national space agencies just dont seem to have the vision, the cash or the popular support needed to initiate humanitys next big steps into space. Theyve left a leadership vacuum as big as space itself. And its being filled by dozens of private companies of all scales not just the giant aerospace manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Airbus and the makers of the new generation of reusable rockets like Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, but also (and just as intriguingly) a raft of smaller startups.

This weeks episode of Soonish is all about those astropreneurs, the early-stage space entrepreneurs who hope to make it big by inventing faster, better, cheaper technologies for propulsion, surveillance, manufacturing and other activities in space.

Many of these companies are benefiting from the introduction of theCubesatdesign specification, an open standard built around 10x10x10-centimeter blocks that can be combined into satellites of arbitrary size. Theres a growing supply chain of Cubesat components, with some merchants even offering parts on Amazon. That means space startups can build satellites mostly using off-the-shelf technology, while focusing the real innovation and investment on the components that are core to their mission. In the case ofLunar Station, a startup featured in this weeks episode, thats a high-definition digital video camera that will capture and retransmit live-stream video of the moon.

But other startups are already looking beyond the microsatellite market.Accion Systemsin Boston, another company featured in this episode,started off thinking that it would offer its new liquid-propellant-based ion engines solely to Cubesat builders. But now the company also wants to supply its engines to makers of larger satellites with masses of 50kg to 150kg, according to CEO Natalya Bailey.

Space offers not just microgravity but an unfettered view of the heavens and the earth. So, tomorrows space economy will likely revolve around a mix of activities such as Earth observation, manufacturing, and mining and fuel production. And its not just billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk pouring money into these visions: venture capital funds put more than $2 billion into space companies in 2015. (More recent figures arent available yet.) And according to Ariel Waldman, a space activist and author whos also featured in this episode, there are more ways than ever for average citizens to get involved in space exploration.

Its probably a little bit frothy right now, but in the longer term, commercial space is here to stay, says Bailey at Accion Systems, which has raised nearly $10 million in venture backing. When people said, Lets lay down hundreds and hundreds of miles of copper wire to communicate with people, Im sure some folks thought that was crazy too. I think were just at another inflection point like that. And sure, we may lose some of the new space startups. But I think space is just going to continue to become more and more present in our lives.

Its about time.

*[This podcast was originally featured bySoonish.]

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observers editorial policy.

Photo Credit: PremiumArt / Shutterstock.com

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Exploring Space With Astropreneurs - Fair Observer - Fair Observer

Are you a Boy Scout troop interested in earning your Space Exploration Merit Badge? Or a Girl Scout or youth group wishing to learn more about rocketry and space history? If so, there is no better place to learn it all than at Kennedy Space Center, NASAs launch headquarters.

This full-day program teaches the purpose of space exploration with discussion covering its history, exciting careers, and the science behind launching rockets. Participants will design collector cards featuring their favorite space pioneer and learn about the different rocket parts as they build and launch their own rocket. Participants also receive admission privileges to enjoy the full Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex experience.

2017 Program Dates:

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Saturday, March 4, 2017

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Please note: All scouts will need to bring their blue card with them in order to receive an educators signature certifying that their badge requirements have been met.

Price:$65 per person, plus tax

Call 1.855.433.4210 to reserve your space now! Someone will be available to make your reservation from 8am-6pm EST.

More Information

Group Size

This event is open to individual scouts or troops.

Food/Beverage

All participants and chaperones should pack their own lunch, snacks and beverages. Water fountains are available. No food or drink will be sold onsite.

Location/Parking

All activities will take place at ATX Center, located six miles west of Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. There is no cost for parking.

Arrival/Check-In

Please arrive by 8:30 am to check in your scout or troop. Activities will begin promptly at 9 am.

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Space Exploration & Rocketry Scout Program