When space technology company Blue Origin successfully completed the 35th suborbital flight of its New Shepard rocket on Sept. 18, it carried research experiments developed by faculty and students in the Carthage College space sciences program.
Carthage students Juliana Alvarez ’26, Teagan Steineke ’26, and Owen Bonnett ’28 hold the mission patch for NS-35, reflecting the 2 payloads Carthage had on the flight while standing in front of the landed booster.Three of the students who helped develop the Carthage payloads — Teagan Steineke ’26, Owen Bonnett ’28, and Juliana Alvarez ’26 — attended the launch in west Texas. Teagan and Juliana had traveled there for a previous launch attempt in August, along with Gabe Klinepeter ’25, Lillyan Neta ’28, and recent graduates Hiroki Imura ’25 and Justin Wheeler ’25.
“It was amazing to get the opportunity to see our payloads launch in person. It felt especially rewarding to see all of our hard work come to fruition!” says Teagan. “Working on the experiment has been so worthwhile, and I am so grateful to be able to participate in a program like this.”
Both payloads are supported by NASA’s Flight Opportunities program and the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium. Carthage’s long partnership with NASA and leading aerospace companies has allowed students and faculty to create solutions to problems in the industry.
Carthage’s team has also flown plant seeds into space from teachers around the world in partnership with the non-profit organization Space for Teachers, providing spaceflight opportunities for middle and high school STEM teachers and allowing over 1000 students to cultivate and study the behavior of plants exposed to the space environment.
Credit: Courtesy of Blue Origin
The latest uncrewed New Shepard mission spent three minutes in zero gravity, providing valuable data for a pair of ongoing Carthage projects:
Propellant Refueling and On-orbit Transfer Operations (PROTO) focuses on developing alternative methods of measuring spacecraft propellant levels in microgravity.
Microgravity Ullage Detection (MUD) involves locating the liquid-vapor interface in spacecraft fuel tanks.
It was the 12th and final payload flight for the RSS H.G. Wells capsule, which Blue Origin plans to put on display.
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