SATLAB at Kennedy Space Center

SATLAB week 2 was pretty exciting.

day 1:
launch preparations!

day 2:
launch!

Unfortunately, our balloon didn't go as high as we wanted it to, and when we finally recovered it, we learned the balloon had a failure and popped at a pretty low altitude, and ended up in a lake in a swamp on Merritt Island. Here's hoping we get to try again. :)

day 3:
Launching water rockets, a tour of the Space Life Sciences Lab, the US Space Walk of  Fame museum and dinner with Astronaut Jon McBride!

Mars simulation chamber 

Squid and stromatolites! 

day 4:
Looking at our balloon videos and exploring the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex! Had an awesome tour guide, touched a shuttle tile, and met a former space shuttle close out crew member! 

Popped. Soggy. 

VAB! 

A huge thanks to Florida Space Grant, University of Florida and SpaceTrek at KSC for all of the awesome things we learned and did during our 2 weeks! 

SATLAB - day 4

Today's trip started out with the drive to Whitney labs in St. Augustine. The labs are marine science labs run by UF. We were given a tour of the labs and got to see a bunch of the animals they keep there for observations. 

Animals in the tanks.

Animals in the classroom. 

Starfish! 

We also got a tour of the actual labs and saw some students and scientists working on their projects. One of the scientists was studying the eyes of horseshoe crabs to learn about how their eyes adjust during the day and night. We also saw small organisms that release cells that sting and stun their prey under a microscope and being shot at with a tiny laser- same results. It was really cool. 

Super cool microscope. 

Baby horseshoe crabs. 

Then we headed to Fort Matanzas. It was built in 1740 out of coquina, a sedimentary rock made out of shells. We walked on the nature trail to see a spot where the Spanish and French solidness fought and found a new little green friend.

Along the trail.

Snake! 

Then we took a ferry to the fort. It's about three stories tall. On the bottom were crew quarters and on the top are officers quarters. We also climbed all the way up to the observation deck at the top. There was a park ranger that filled us in on history, but there was also a ranger in a full Spanish soldier costume. He actually showed us how to fire a musket. 

Flag at the top of the fort. 

Up close of the coquina. 

Musket lessons. 

Playing around at the fort. 

My awesome students and chaperone! 

We're headed back to Orlando tomorrow then we're off to Kennedy on Monday! See you next week! 

 

 

SATLAB day 3

This morning started with a presentation from Dr. Telesco, the chair of the astronomy department at UF. He's been here awhile and worked on lots of instruments that have been on lots of telescopes. His new passion he shared with us is small satellites - cubesats. 

Prototype cubesat

It has a telescope in the bottom!

Then we headed back down to the astronomy lab. Jim showed us how to use the software to plan our flight. It uses wind data to predict where our weather balloon will land when it launches. We tried launching from our school's courtyard, magic kingdom, lots of other orlando places and the space coast (where we'll actually be launching from) just to see what happens. The software is free and it's really cool! 

Learning about the flight prediction software. 

Our next stop was the planetarium at Santa Fe community college. We got to watch a movie called Extreme Planets and see a planetarium show. 

We had dinner tonight with the team from Spain which was really cool because we haven't really had a lot of time with them yet. The students really had fun talking about what being in the IB program is like in the US and in Spain. Our team then went to get frozen custard (and we laughed a whole lot). 

Frozen custard is REALLY good. 

That's all for today! Tomorrow we're off to tour Whitney Labs and see St. Augustine :) 

 

SATLAB day 2

Oh, science. You never let things go according to plan, do you? This morning- after learning about launch safety with a retired Air Force launch director (pretty cool)- we went up on the roof again to test our equipment because the sun was out...and it didn't work. 

So we found UV sensors and ordered them online, we think will work and the girls are currently working hard to take our good ideas from before to adapt them to our new design. 

Finding out our sensors don't work. 

Working hard on a better design! 

Cool signs in the astronomy building. 

After working on our new design and a harness for us to use to attach it to the weather balloon, we decided to head back to the hotel. The UF campus is super nice. 

By the bell tower! 

Gator! 

Gator selfie!

Unfortunately, our trip to the observatory was canceled tonight because of the lovely cover of clouds we had all day today, but fingers crossed for clear skies tomorrow! 

SATLAB day 1

We made it to Gainesville! I'm here with 3 of my high school students, 3 from Spain and 3 from Gainesville to work on building experiment packages that are going to be launched on a weather balloon near Kennedy Space Center next week. 

It was a fun first day filled with learning about NASA, learning about the GPS tracking for our balloon and learning about how to set up our experiments. Unfortunately, the UV sensors we have couldn't be tested (thanks Florida weather) but hoepfully tomorrow everything will go smoothly... But maybe not, because science. :) We think our experiment is going to gather data for us on how well different SPF sunscreen works with changing amounts of UV radiation. 

Looking forward to dinner and tomorrow! 

The building where we're working! 

In the lobby of the building... Yay NASA! 

On the roof, we didn't see the SpaceX launch, but we did see the swamp! Go Gators! 

Just starting our experiment! 

Working! 

Saran Wrap was not our friend.