The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) provides an opportunity for student groups from upper elementary school through university to design and fly

microgravity The term micro-g environment (also μg, often referred to by the term microgravity) is more or less synonymous with the terms ''weightlessness'' and ''zero-g'', but emphasising that g-forces are never exactly zero—just very small (on the I ...

experiments in low Earth orbit (LEO). SSEP is a program of the

National Center for Earth and Space Science Education National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

(NCESSE, a project of the

Tides Center Tides Foundation is an American public charity and fiscal sponsor working to advance progressive causes and policy initiatives in areas such as the environment, health care, labor issues, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights and human ...

), the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education, and the private space hardware company

NanoRacks Nanoracks LLC is a private in-space services companywhich builds space hardware and in-space repurposing tools.The company also facilitates experiments and launches of CubeSats to Low Earth Orbit. Nanoracks's main office is in Houston, Tex ...

. SSEP operates under a

Space Act Agreement Space Act Agreements (abbreviated SAA) are a type of legal agreement specified in the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (and subsequent congressional authorizations) that uniquely empowers the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ...

between the sponsoring organizations and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

, allowing the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

(ISS) to be utilized as a national laboratory.

History

The program was launched in June 2010, by NCESSE in the U.S. and by the Clarke Institute internationally. , SSEP has sponsored fourteen missions to LEO – two on board the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program na ...

, and twelve to the ISS – with a thirteenth mission to the ISS announced in March 2018, and expected to fly in the spring/summer of 2019. In the first fourteen SSEP flight opportunities, 86,800 students in grades 5 through 16 ( senior undergraduate in the U.S. higher education system) participated in experiment design and proposal writing. Of 18,759 proposals received, a total of 240 experiments were selected for flight, with one from each community participating in each flight opportunity. , 206 of these experiments have been successfully launched. The 18 experiments comprising Mission 6 to the ISS were lost when the

Cygnus CRS Orb-3 Orbital-3, also known as Orb-3, was an attempted flight of Cygnus, an automated cargo spacecraft developed by United States-based company Orbital Sciences, on 28 October 2014. The mission was intended to launch at 22:22:38 UTC that evening. T ...

vehicle exploded shortly after launch on 28 October 2014.

Key dates

Process

The competition to select student projects for flight is designed to resemble a standard

research proposal A research proposal is a document proposing a research project, generally in the sciences or academia, and generally constitutes a request for sponsorship of that research. Proposals are evaluated on the cost and potential impact of the proposed ...

process. Interested groups must submit proposals in response to announced criteria; these proposals are then

peer-review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

ed against the criteria in a two-stage selection process, with the vast majority of proposals rejected. Each selected experiment is provided with one mini-laboratory, which is flown on the ISS and then returned to Earth for analysis. Experiments selected for flight have included research into

crystal growth A crystal is a solid material whose constituent atoms, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions. Crystal growth is a major stage of a crystallization process, and consists of the a ...

composting Compost is a mixture of ingredients used as plant fertilizer and to improve soil's physical, chemical and biological properties. It is commonly prepared by decomposing plant, food waste, recycling organic materials and manure. The resulting m ...

cell division Cell division is the process by which a parent cell (biology), cell divides into two daughter cells. Cell division usually occurs as part of a larger cell cycle in which the cell grows and replicates its chromosome(s) before dividing. In eukar ...

seed germination Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an flowering plant, angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spor ...

, and

calcium metabolism Calcium metabolism is the movement and regulation of calcium ions (Ca2+) ''in'' (via the gut) and ''out'' (via the gut and kidneys) of the body, and ''between'' body compartments: the blood plasma, the extracellular and intracellular fluids, and ...

. The cost of each experiment is on the order of

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

24,500, which must be raised by the community developing the experiment. Students have an opportunity to share their research at a national conference sponsored by the Smithsonian

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...

, NCESSE, and the Clarke Institute. Students participating in the program have also been given the chance to participate in a

videoconference Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...

with space station astronauts.

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

SSEP in the News

SSEP In Our Own Words (Essays from SSEP participants)
Science education Science competitions Youth science United States educational programs Space science International Space Station