We'll be conducting another test of our high altitude balloon program today.

Dropzone! asks local supporters to sponsor middle school science and get something truly unique in return - the image of their choice pictured at the edge of space.

The program is structured so that educators can also raise much needed funds for labs supplies and books! Think of it as a high tech bake sale.

If this sounds interesting to you, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it at Kentucky Space for more information.

Here is a picture of the East Jessamine Middle School mascot in nearspace from Dropzone!'s last flight. I'll be back with more images - and perhaps some video - after we chase down the payload today.

Wayne

This Spheres code competition lets students test their work onboard the International Space Station.

On January 26, three teams of high school science students got to watch real robots they had programmed carry out their code aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The three top teams were part of a group of 27 high school teams from across the United States who participated in this year's Zero Robotics competition. The competition lets high school students write software for a set of basketball sized satellites called SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold Engage and Reorient Experimental Satellites.) The SPHERES work in a swarm, so students learned how to program a single robot and then how to make those robots work together as part of a team.

Students can sign up for the next free Zero Robotics competition this fall. All they need is a team of at least five students, one faculty mentor, one mentor with programming experience, and two Flash enabled computers with Internet access. Participation is free, but winning teams have to raise their own money to attend the live ISS event at MIT.

Go to zerorobotics.org for more information.

PopSci features a look at the diminutive CubeSat and how it is revolutionizing access to orbit. 

With so many scheduled launches, an undergraduate engineering student at one of the nearly 100 schools making CubeSats can design one during her freshman year and see it reach space before graduation. When Roland Coelho, a CalPoly graduate student, was filling out a preflight survey for his CubeSat last year, the range safety officer at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California approached him in confusion. “It asks whether you’ll need a military convoy to escort you,” the officer said. “You don’t?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Coelho replied. “It fits in the trunk of my car.”

Bob Twiggs is working with Kentucky Space in his role as a professor at Morehead State University in Kentucky. We hear he has some other ideas up his sleeve. 

Wayne

Speaking at a National Press Club luncheon on Sept. 29 last year, SpaceX CEO/CTO Elon Musk talked about the current model for spaceflight, pointing out in this clip that as an economic and business proposition, it's awful. What if an airliner could only be used once?

Saying his company had spec'd a multi-stage, fully reusable rocket, he announced at the press luncheon that SpaceX will try to build it. If successful, it would exponentially lower the capital costs per launch.

See his entire presentation here.

Wayne