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BOONE, N.C. — Three Appalachian State University students have received North Carolina Space Grants to conduct science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research in the 2024–25 academic year.

North Carolina Space Grants are funded by NASA and have been administered by North Carolina State University since 1991. Awards benefit undergraduate students as they perform research on App State’s campuses, or at industrial sites or government facilities. The grants also provide students with opportunities to develop relationships with university mentors and NASA experts.

App State’s 2024–25 North Carolina Space Grant recipients:

• Cooper Brown, a junior ecology, evolution and environmental biology major from Holly Springs, who is researching greenhouse gasses in Southern Appalachian ponds.
• Hailey Church, a senior cellular/molecular biology major from Boone, who is also researching greenhouse gasses in Southern Appalachian ponds.
• Cade Tischer, a senior applied physics major from Cary, who is researching measurements of humidity to predict aerosol liquid water content.

Each student will receive one year of funds to supplement and enhance their research, culminating in a final report and poster presentation to the North Carolina Space Symposium in spring 2025.

Read the full article on today.appstate.edu. (Original Post Date: Sept. 20, 2024)

Author Credit: By Lauren Gibbs and Brian Miller

Image Credit: North Carolina Space Grant Consortium

Williamsport, Pa. — The Williamsport liberal arts school is the newest recipient of a NASA Space Grant.

The grant is providing new research internship opportunities for 15 Lycoming College astronomy and astrophysics students over the next five years. NASA provided $35,000 to the college, which was matched by Lycoming for a total investment of $70,000.

The support from NASA places Lycoming’s astronomy program among the likes of Carnegie Mellon and Lehigh University.

The National Space Grant program was launched in 1989 by NASA to connect with colleges and universities and expand opportunities for Americans to understand and participate in aeronautics and space projects. This includes supporting education, research, and public outreach.

“Thanks to the NASA Space Grant, we are able to engage students in research very early in their careers, which will be transformative to their college experience,” said Melissa Morris, assistant professor of astronomy and physics at Lycoming College. “Not only will they gain first-hand experience of what the actual scientific research process looks like, they will also gain knowledge and skills that they will carry with them for the rest of their careers, both at and beyond Lycoming College.”

Read the full article on northcentralpa.com. (Original Post Date: Nov. 14, 2024)

Author Credit: NCPA Staff

Image Credit: NASA

We are excited to announce that Dr. Joseph Orr from the Department of Anesthesiology has been awarded a $3,410,000 grant from the NASA Office of STEM Engagement. This significant four-year funding, granted through the Utah NASA Space Grant Consortium (UNSGC), will support initiatives spanning K-12 outreach, higher education, research, and workforce development aligned with NASA’s mission.

Running from May 18, 2025, to May 17, 2029, the grant will allocate $800,000 in the first year, followed by $870,000 annually in years two through four. The UNSGC’s mission is to connect Utah students, educators, and the public with NASA’s space and aeronautics projects, aiming to develop a robust pipeline of skilled and diverse future talent. Through 19 affiliate institutions in Utah, UNSGC provides student internships, fellowships, scholarships, and community outreach to encourage STEM engagement and career paths within NASA’s missions.

Read the full article on medicine.utah.edu. (Original Post Date: Nov. 4, 2024)

Author Credit: University of Utah

Image Credit: University of Utah

Connecticut College is now part of the Connecticut Space Grant Consortium, a NASA-funded program administered at the state level that sponsors faculty and student research and student internships across the U.S.

Affiliated institutions include four-year colleges and universities, community colleges, science centers, institutes and museums. In Connecticut, the University of Hartford administers grants as the state’s lead institution for the program. The addition of Conn this year brings the total members of post-secondary institutions in the state to 27.

Assistant Teaching Professor of Astronomy Alex Gianninas, who serves as Conn’s campus director for the program, said he first learned of it while teaching at the University of Hartford. When a Conn student sought funding last fall to attend a conference in Hawaii, Gianninas looked into the Space Grant. He learned only students and faculty at member institutions could apply, and Conn wasn’t a member.

Read the full story on conncoll.edu. (Original post date: Sept. 26, 2024)

Author Credit: Connecticut College

Image Credit: Connecticut Space Grant Consortium

AMES, Iowa – A Clinton County elementary school student team was selected as Best in Show for Crop Growth in the 2023-24 Plant the Moon Challenge. Their project and report were featured in the online closing symposium seen by groups around the world.

The Plant the Moon Challenge is a global science experiment, learning activity and inspirational, project based learning challenge to see who can grow the best crops using lunar or Martian regolith simulants. The Institute of Competition Sciences runs the program in collaboration with NASA and other science advisors as part of the Artemis mission. Educators are now invited to register teams for this learning opportunity for the 2024-25 year.

Radishes and lettuce for the win

In the 2023-24 challenge, Clinton County’s Smithtown Academy Bees from Lost Nation submitted “How do different fertilizers combined with soil and moon regolith affect lettuce and radish growth?” for review by NASA scientists. The team of two, Johann, fourth grade, and Henry, fifth grade, studied the effect of different soil supplements on the growth of lettuce and radishes planted in 50/50 soil and lunar simulant mixtures. The participants chose lettuce and radish plants because they wanted one plant growing above the soil and one below the soil. They evaluated bone meal, blood meal and liquid kelp because they have different nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels.

“I really appreciated [their] great care in the germination of [their] plants by covering the pots with plastic to retain moisture,” said Melanie Mormile, scientist advisory board member and associate dean of research at Missouri University of Science and Technology. She said the team did a great job with the “careful thinning of the plants so that the remaining plants that they actually were going to run their tests on did not get stressed from being overcrowded.”

After a 10-week growing period, they found their hypothesis of the soil and moon regolith supplemented with bone meal as the best for growing radishes due to the higher phosphorus helping with root growth incorrect. They also hypothesized that the blood meal-supplemented pots would be best for lettuce because they had the most nitrogen, which is good for leaf growth; this hypothesis was correct.

Read the full article on MorningAgClips.com

Image Credit: Jessica Ihns

Author Credit: Morning Ag Clips

Original Post Date: Oct. 27, 2024

DURHAM — The University of New Hampshire announced it has been awarded $24.3 million by NASA, on behalf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to build sensors for an alert system that will monitor the effects of space weather and the solar wind — caused by explosions on the sun — for potential interruptions to key technology like satellite communications, electric power grids and GPS systems.

“We are extremely excited to play a critical role in the nation’s space weather alert system,” said Lynn Kistler, professor of physics and astronomy and director of UNH’s Space Science Center. “This allows us to use our scientific expertise to help address vital national safety interests and build on UNH’s long history of scientific and operational missions, expanding the range of the UNH Space Science Center’s strong proficiency and skill in space instrumentation.”

As part of the solar wind plasma sensor contract, UNH will develop and build two sensors for the Lagrange 1 Series project to monitor the solar wind — a supersonic flow of hot particles known as plasma, from the sun. The sensors at L1 will help identify and give a ‘head’s up’ warning of any concerns in about 100 minutes for slower events and about ten minutes for faster events.

This data will be used in both real time for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center alert system, which issues forecasts, warnings and alerts that help mitigate any potential issues caused by space weather, as well as be available to the scientific community to study the response of the Earth’s environment to space weather events.

“While the data may be used in space weather impact studies, this is an operational mission to help raise the alarm if any large-scale solar wind structures, such as coronal mass ejections, passing the L1 point are considered dangerous,” Toni Galvin, research professor and director of N.H. Space Grant Consortium. “Because of that, the instrument requirements are more stringent, and they have to be able to measure the most extreme conditions with high accuracy, because those are the conditions that can cause the most potential harm to technology.”

Read the full article on Fosters.com.

Image Credit: NASA/SDO Provided by UNH

Author Credit: Special to Seacoastonline | Portsmouth Herald

Original Post Date: Oct. 29, 2024

Naseeha Cardwell, a chemical engineering PhD candidate, has received the Dorothy L. Simpson Leadership Award from the Seattle chapter of Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Foundation (ARCS).

The award is in recognition of leadership, intellectual curiosity, community commitment and dedication to the greater good. The ARCS Foundation supports scientific and technological education and provides financial awards to students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

This award was given to Cardwell in acknowledgement of her dedication to scientific innovation, particularly in the realm of renewable biofuels, as well as in tribute to her mentorship and leadership within the academic community.

Originally from Des Moines, Washington, Cardwell came to WSU after receiving her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Montana State University.

“Cardwell is advancing efforts to upgrade bio-oil to usable biofuels,” said Jean-Sabin McEwen, her advisor and a professor in the Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering. “She is increasing the potential for their viability as compared to petroleum-based fuels.”

Read the full article on News.WSU.edu.

Image Credit: Naseeha Cardwell

Author Credit: Tina Hilding, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture

Original Post Date: Oct. 4, 2024

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As part of a large-scale effort to unlock clues about the origins of life on Earth, Brown University researchers are analyzing rare fragments from the asteroid Bennu, hoping to reveal its ancient secrets.

The work is happening at the NASA-funded Reflectance Experiment Laboratory (RELAB), which is housed on the University’s campus and led by Brown planetary scientist Ralph Milliken.

The researchers at RELAB are among approximately 200 scientists around the world to have received samples from Bennu to date. The analysis is part of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, which was the first U.S. mission to collect a sample from an asteroid and deliver it to Earth.

“These samples are the best examples we have today of some of the most primitive material in our solar system,” said Milliken, who also directs the NASA Rhode Island Space Grant Consortium and is an associate professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown. “It’s really amazing and humbling to know our group is one of a handful of specialized spectroscopy labs who are working with this material that has been in space for the last four and a half billion years.”

NASA’s robotic OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched in 2016 and returned in September 2023, delivering a container filled with about four ounces of rock and dust from Bennu, which it collected on Oct. 20, 2020. Samples of Bennu started to arrive at Brown in November 2023 for initial analysis due to the lab and University’s long history of working with sensitive extraterrestrial samples.

Read the full article on Brown.edu.

Image Credit: Nick Dentamaro/Brown University

Author Credit: Juan Siliezar | juan_siliezar@brown.edu

Original Post Date: Oct. 29, 2024

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. — A team from Penn State Harrisburg spent a week at a NASA facility over the summer, building a scientific experiment and sending it to space through the RockOn! program.

NASA’s RockOn! is a weeklong, hands-on workshop teaching participants how to create a sounding rocket experiment and then launch it into space at the end of the workshop.

Penn State Harrisburg students Trent Townsend, a mechanical engineering major, and Neil Lerch, a graduate student in electrical engineering, and University Park student Sara Jambhekar, who is studying aerospace engineering, participated, along with Brian Maicke, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State Harrisburg. The students’ participation was funded by the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium.

Maicke and the students spent a week in Virginia at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, where they built a scientific payload consisting of a Geiger counter, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, pressure, and temperature measurements.

Read the full article on PSU.edu.

Image Credit: Brian Maicke / Penn State. Creative Commons

Author Credit: Penn State

Original Post Date: Oct. 21, 2024