Aerospace STEM (Science Technology Engineering Math) Challenges to Educate New Discoverers
ASCEND! is an Arizona Space Grant Consortium statewide Workforce Development program, designed to involve undergraduate students from across Arizona in the full "design-build-fly-operate-analyze" cycle of a space mission.
Across our state, student teams (from UA, ASU, NAU, ERAU, SMCC, PCC NW, GCC) will design and build small payloads for launch from high altitude weather balloons to measure various atmospheric parameters as a function of altitude up to about 100,000 feet and to obtain a series of timed images of the Earth throughout the balloon ascent to characterize surface features, cloud structure and the Earth's curvature.
Participation in this program is geared to complement regular classroom learning by offering direct hands-on immersion with the full mission cycle. Few NASA or aerospace industry scientists and engineers ever take a project through the full mission cycle.
For more information, please visit the Arizona Space Grant website here.
