NASA will fly six university experiments developed by undergraduate students from its Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia between 6:45 and 10 a.m., Friday, March 27. The experiments will examine technology development, microgravity science and the search for life in the upper atmosphere and near space during the suborbital mission, which will reach an altitude of nearly 94 nautical miles.

The experiments, which will fly aboard a NASA Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket, were developed through the RockSat-X program, a collaboration with the Colorado Space Grant Consortium at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The back-up launch dates are March 28-30.

Participating universities in this flight are the University of Colorado, Boulder; Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho; the University of Puerto Rico; the University of Nebraska, Lincoln; and Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg.

Phil Eberspeaker, chief of the Sounding Rocket Program Office at Wallops, said, We are pleased to continue our collaboration with the Colorado Space Grant Consortium in providing students from institutions across the United States the ability to fly their experiments in space.

This is the fourth flight of RockSat-X experiments. The quality of the experiments developed by the students shows they are prepared for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers, he said.

RockSat-X is the third tier in a multi-phase NASA program for providing flight experiences for community college and university students to improve their skills in developing experiments and payloads for spaceflight.

Tier One, called Rock-On, introduces students and instructors to payload development; Tier Two, RockSat-C, then allows them to build on this learning experience developing an experiment for flight.

Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, said, RockSat-X is a great way for college students to put their experiments into space, giving them an experience that will help them in their future STEM-related careers.

The University of Puerto Rico has participated in the three past RockSat-X launches, in addition to participating in the Rock-On and RockSat-C programs dating back to 2008.

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NASA Provides Space Access for University Developed Experiments during March 27 Flight