WATCH: Springfield Students' Experiment To Be Launched Into Space

SPRINGFIELD, NJ — Springfield Public School students’ science experiment, and mission patches are going to space on Saturday morning.

Springfield students were among 84 students to participate in a science experience, as part of the national Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP).

The SSEP Mission 9 to ISS flight experiments payload "Endeavor" is scheduled to launch Saturday, Feb. 18 at 10:01 a.m. from Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, aboard SpaceX CRS-10.

The launch will be covered live on NASA TV, and a video portal is provided below as well if on the SSEP National Program website.

In addition, SpaceX will have a live webcast of the launch, and we have also provided a video portal for the SpaceX webcast below.

Watch the SpaceX Live Webcast on this video portal:

Watch Live On This NASA TV Portal:

There are 44 of 84 SSEP student researchers traveling down for the launch of their experiments, representing 9 of the 21 Mission 9 communities:

• East Lyme, CT;
• Hillsborough County, FL;
• Boise, ID;
• Traverse City, MI;
• Springfield, NJ:
• Buffalo-Niagara, NY;
• North Charleston, SC;
• Knox County, TN;
• Bellevue, WA.

Small teams of students from grades 5 through 12 researched and submitted a formal proposal for a microgravity experiment.

One experiment was selected from Springfield to be among 21 districts in the US and Canada that will have their experiments launched to the International Space Station in mid-2017 as part of SSEP Mission 11.

The SSEP is sponsored by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE), a non-profit organization that hopes to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers by engaging their natural human impulse to ask questions and explore the world around them.

From early September 2016, Springfield students began to explore physical forces and the concept of microgravity in science classes. For nine weeks, from Sept. 6 to Nov. 4, small teams of students in each class selected an area (biological, chemical, or physical) to research and propose an experiment that test the effects of microgravity on a system of their choosing.

In mid-November, a local team of educators and community scientists/engineers came together for a Review
Board that selected three proposals for submission to a national selection committee. That committee then ultimately selected one of the experiments from Springfield to be transported in mid-2017 to the International Space Station (ISS).

The experiment will eventually be returned to the student team at Springfield for analysis.

For more information visit http://ssep.ncesse.org/2017/02...

(Photo via NASA: SpaceX CRS-1)

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