Up in space … with Colony Middle

MAT-SU -- Colony Middle School students are conducting experiments similar to those done by NASA engineers in an attempt to figure out how NASA's Personal Satellite Assistant, or PSA, will maneuver in space.

"It needs to move through the space station, it has to stop and maneuver around corners," said CMS science teacher Dana Phillips, one of a handful of teachers nationwide chosen to pilot the "PSA Earth-to-Orbit Design Challenge."

Twenty-seven classrooms are conducting an eight-mission program designed to simulate the PSA's fan-powered maneuvering system. While anyone is welcome to conduct the challenge via the NASA education Web site, those classrooms chosen to pilot the program will take two students and the instructor from each class to Huntsville, Ala., to the Marshall Space Flight Center to give feedback on the challenge program in May.

"If need be, NASA will be using that information to change the program for future challenges," Phillips said.

NASA provided all of the equipment needed to conduct the experiments. Aside from the magnetic switch that turns the PSA simulator on, called a reed switch, the students build the simulators from the materials provided. Phillips' class, part of the Connections Program at CMS, has 20 students broken up into teams of five; NASA has provided the parts for four simulators, which CMS will keep once the class in completed.

"One of my goals is to have these kids train other kids on what they've learned this year," Phillips said.

The students will study propulsion with the simulator. Their first mission was to build the simulator, a fan-powered wheel which simulates the power used to propel the PSA, and then get the simulator to move and coast to a stop.

"The challenges the kids go through are actually some of the same challenges the NASA engineers went through [while designing the PSA]," Phillips said. "They'll be doing missions where one of the fans burn out, creating an emergency situation where they will have to figure out how to continue to maneuver the PSA."

Seventh-grader Shannon Browning is one of the two students who will accompany Phillips to Alabama from May 12-16. So far the nine-week course has been a good experience for Browning.

"Its hard," she said. "My favorite part has been testing to see how fast the simulator goes."

Phillips' class is going above and beyond what NASA requires the pilot classrooms to do; the students created an online Web log where each student will record daily how the missions are coming along.

"We are going to write in our log books so the NASA people can see what we liked and didn't like," said Amber Klinger, one of Phillips' students. "We try to be specific."

NASA personnel aren't the only people privy to the site, anyone can check on the challenge status by visiting http://cms.matsuk12.us/teams/explorers/NASA/NASACONNECTIONS.

So far, the students have already come up with a few changes they'd like to see for next year.

"I'd like to experiment with more high-powered batteries," said seventh-grader Anthony Smith.

Contact Jen Ransom at jen.ransom@frontiersman.com.