Launch Opportunity: RockSat-C and RockSat-X Programs

NASA, in partnership with the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, is offering the opportunity for university instructors and students to participate in three programs designed for everyone from the novice to the more experienced space researcher.

RockSat-C is a competitive program for university and community college students to design and build a sounding rocket payload, and then launch the payload on a sounding rocket at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The program actively engages students through full design-process mentoring, with assistance through the design phase throughout the fall semester. During the spring semester, teams are lead through testing and integration reviews, along with a launch readiness review.

RockSat-X pushes the RockSat-C concept to new extremes by providing participants with full access to the space environment, more in-flight resources and less restrictive design space. Deployable items are even allowed. In addition, payloads will be provided power and a live telemetry feed for real-time data acquisition during the flight. These amenities allow experimenters to focus more on the science and leave power and data handling to the Wallops rocket team.

Selected RockSat-C experiments will launch in June 2015. RockSat-X experiments are expected to launch later in the summer.

Student teams who are up to the challenge are invited to submit an intent to fly form beforeSept. 19, 2014.

To learn more about Rocket-C and to see experiments selected for previous flights, visithttp://spacegrant.colorado.edu/national-programs/rs-c-2015-home.

Questions about the RockSat-C program should be directed to Becca Lidvall by email at rocksatprogram@gmail.com.

To learn more about RockSat-X and to see experiments selected for previous flights, visithttp://spacegrant.colorado.edu/national-programs/rs-x-2015-home.

Questions about the RockSat-X program should be directed to Jesse Austin by email at rocksatx@gmail.com.