CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida – December 6, 2020 – DreamUp, the leader in space-based educational offerings, is proud to announce the launch of thirty-five student-designed experiments to the International Space Station on today’s SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-21 rocket launch. These educational payloads, built by students from middle school to university around the world, represent their unprecedented perseverance as they continued to prepare their experiments for flight in unusually challenging circumstances due to COVID-19.
The student payloads launched in SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon alongside thousands of pounds of NASA cargo, supplies, more than 250 science and research investigations, as well as the Nanoracks Bishop Airlock, the first permanent, commercial addition to the International Space Station infrastructure. The Cargo Dragon is scheduled to dock to the Space Station tomorrow, Monday, December 7, 2020.
Specifically, the investigations on board are designed and built by a diverse range of students hailing from several countries and participating in programs led by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE), Orbital Space, The Ramon Foundation, and the Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance (TRSA).
Notably, “E. Coli Consuming Carbon Dioxide to Combat Climate Change (E. coli C5)” will be the first payload launched to the International Space Station from Kuwait. Designed by a team of students from the American School of Kuwait who won Orbital Space’s “Experiments in Space” competition, this Mixstix experiment will investigate how a genetically modified strain of E. Coli bacteria that uses atmospheric carbon dioxide as a food source will behave in the microgravity environment of the Space Station.
The Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance, supported by Flight Night, solicited Mixstix experiment proposals from students throughout Oklahoma in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. After participating in a two-phased selection process, six students from three teams were selected as winners. The three teams come from Jenks Southeast Elementary and Summit Christian Academy.
Twenty-eight Mixstix experiments from NCESSE’s Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 14 and three Mixstix from the Ramon Foundation’s Spacelab program represent long-enduring partnerships that reach students in a broad range of schools across Brazil, Canada, Israel, and the United States and inspire countless more.
“It is fitting that this notable launch for commercial space will be carrying such a large and diverse array of student investigations, and I am particularly excited to for the launch of the very first Kuwaiti experiment on the International Space Station!” said Allen Herbert, Interim CEO of DreamUp. “Student-designed microgravity research has the power to excite and engage not only young learners, but their parents, schools, and broader communities, and to equip them to pursue the challenges that humanity will face in the future. DreamUp is proud to support students as they pursue cutting-edge research on the most advanced commercial space platforms, and we congratulate them all on their persistence and tenacity in a challenging time.”
These launch opportunities were made possible via our partnership with Nanoracks and its Space Act Agreement with NASA.
For additional media inquiries, please email us at info@dreamup.org, and for continued updates, be sure to follow @DreamUp_Space on Twitter and Instagram.
About DreamUp
Based in Washington, DC, DreamUp is the first company bringing space into the classroom and the classroom into space. Uniquely positioned to inspire kids globally and engage them through scientific discoveries in space, DreamUp aims to foster an educational community where space-based research and projects will be available to all learners of all ages. DreamUp has a proven track record with more than 400 student research payloads from around the world launched on SpaceX and Northrop Grumman rockets to the International Space Station via a partnership with Nanoracks and its Space Act Agreement with NASA. For more information, visit https://www.dreamup.org/.
