An Omaha student experiment and two mission patch designs will blast off to the International Space Station this summer as part of the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.
Communities across the U.S. can participate in the program. Metropolitan Community College hosted the competitions for the Omaha area. For the experiment portion, college and dual-credit students could apply. Kendra Sibbernsen, a physics and astronomy professor at Metro, said students had to fit their design into certain specifications, which made it challenging.
“The amount of materials that they could fit in there were very small,” Sibbernsen said. “It was like five milliliters, 10 milliliters and five milliliters in this tube. They could be mixed together by astronauts on the space station at certain times, but it was very limited in what the astronauts would interact with the experiments.”
Three teams from MCC were picked to go to a national competition, where One Omaha team’s experiment was selected to go into orbit this summer. Its experiment will look at measuring neutron radiation using a bubble dosimeter.
“We’re going to have a couple of them here in Nebraska measuring, and then we’re going to have a couple on the space station for about a month,” Sibbernsen said. “Then it’ll come back, and then we will be able to have the students compare the two. We expect to see quite a bit more neutron radiation on the International Space Station.”
Sibbernsen said the competition helps students think deeper about science through developing an experiment and thinking through the design of it. They also learn collaboration with their peers and with other professionals. For example, the winning student group worked with a company in Canada that is a global expert in measuring radiation.
“At NASA, they have large groups, and they all have to work together for a common goal,” Sibbernsen said. “There’s a lot of additional things, other than just the science, and I think it’s important for students to see that that’s how real science is done in the real world.”
In addition to the experiment headed to space, two student mission patch designs will head to the International Space Station. Bhavyasri Bhooma, a fourth-grader at Swanson Elementary, designed a patch featuring two astronauts and a rocket ship on the moon.
“I was shocked knowing that it got selected and it’s going to travel to space in the summer,” Bhooma said.
She said she drew inspiration from space movies for her design.
“I’m interested in space because there’s so many new things that we could explore,” Bhooma said. “I was also interested in art because I like drawing and making different designs and shading colors.”
Bhooma also shared advice for others who may be interested in competitions like this.
“I would tell them that it’s just two parts: to brainstorm ideas, and you turn on it until your heart loves it,” Bhooma said.
Ayreonna Toney-Primes, a senior at Westview High School, won the high school category for her design of a rocket ship flying out of Nebraska. The two designs were selected from 581 submissions across Douglas, Dodge, Sarpy and Washington counties.
The mission patches and experiment will launch into space in June.