September 2006 |
LaACES underway at LSU, McNeese, SUBR, LaTech, and UNO. |
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14 June 2006 |
Recruitment for 2006-2007 LaACES sessions now in progress. Reserve your seat now. See the general announcement here. See the LSU specific announcement here. |
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29 May 2006 |
Launch trip results in two successful flights. See "News" and "Flight Info" for details |
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See the News page for the latest announcements and the Groups page for information about participating institutions. |
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The primary goal of the Aerospace Catalyst Experiences for Students (ACES) project, funded at Louisiana State University by NASA's National Space Grant College and Fellowship program, is giving students a true hands-on experience with project management, life-cycle, experiment construction, data collection, analysis and interpretation. | |||||||
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During ACES students design, build, fly and analyze the data returned from small payloads (typical dimensions 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm, typical weight ~500 grams) carried up to ~100,000 feet by a helium-filled latex sounding balloon. |
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The ACES pilot program, run during the 2002-2003 academic year, involved 13 LSU and SU students, grouped in 4 teams, that built payloads for studies in atmospheric science, cosmic rays and remote sensing. These payloads were then launched from the NASA National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF) in Palestine, Texas on May 21, 2003. Most recently, the La ACES (Louisiana ACES) program has been selected for funding by NASA. During 2004-2005 La ACES has expanded the pilot program to five institutions across the state (See Groups page) and has included development of lectures and activities for a new Student Ballooning Course (see LaACES publications). |
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Student teams at each of the LaACES institutions are now engaged in the development of their balloon payloads and we anticipate launch during May 2005 from the NASA NSBF. We have also begun piloting an Advanced ACES program, for students who have completed the entry ACES "course", that includes participation in the student built MIMIC Mars probe spacecraft. Management of LaACES is through the Louisiana Space Consortium with Dr. John P. Wefel as Principal Investigator. See the LaACES Management page for contact information |
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See the Question & Answer (Q & A) page for the ACES FAQ and Discussion Group |
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Across America, Space Grant students are learning from the ground up--literally--by designing, building, flying and operating a broad range of spacecraft. Students come with an interest in Space, but with different levels of skill, knowledge, and experience. Missions of growing complexity provide opportunities to acquire baseline skills and then to build on them. We call this strategy "crawl", "walk", "run" and "fly!". Our goal is to make aerospace history and send the first student-built satellites to Mars. |
