River Beard
River Beard is a physics student at Bethel University in the class of 2021. River is driven to learn how the universe works and wants to use science and engineering to improve the lives of individuals and societies. River is researching the 5S – 5D two-photon transition in Rubidium as an optical frequency standard. The […]
Thunder Rocketry Club at Fond du Lac Tribal & Community College
The Thunder Rocketry Club at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College has been building and launching high power rockets for over ten years. Their first experiences were with the First Nations Competition in Wisconsin, but as of late, they have been attempting the MnSGC Midwest Competition, which is closer to home. The Thunder […]
Dr. Demoz Gebre-Egziabher
Director of the NASA Minnesota Space Grant Consortium. Demoz Gebre-Egziabher is a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
MN Space Grant Student Symposium on March 27, 2021
The Minnesota Space Grant Consortium hosted a statewide Student Symposium on Saturday, March 27, 2021 – see link to “abstract booklet” (including recorded video links) posted below. This day-long virtual event included talks from 24 individual students and student teams who have been working on MnSGC-sponsored projects during the past year. There were also talks […]
Dendrochronology at Bemidji State University
It is often uncommon to find field-based teaching in the study of ecology. At Bemidji State University, undergraduate students in the Center for Sustainability Studies are given the opportunity to learn material, such as patterns in the growth rings of trees to interpret environmental changes, through hands-on learning. This allows the students to learn landscape […]
Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars
On Feb. 18, 2021, NASA’s Perseverance Rover landed in the Jezero Crater on Mars. The car-sized rover is set to have a mission duration of at least one Mars year, which is about 687 Earth days. Perseverance is tasked with seeking out signs of ancient life and collecting rock and soil samples for possible return […]
Midwest High-Power Rocketry Competition Cancelled for 2020-2021 Academic Year
Due to ongoing COVID-19 restrictions and uncertainties in Minnesota (and around the country), the Space Grant Midwest High-Power Rocketry Competition for the 2020-2021 school year needed to be cancelled. We are optimistic that by late summer 2021 we will be able to propose a new competition for the 2021-2022 academic year. Stay tuned!
Researching Spectroscopic Characterization of Low-Mass Stars at Carleton College
At Carleton College, students Freja Olsen and Adam Ickler developed and tested methods for measuring the chemical abundances of nearby low-mass stars using high-resolution spectra from the Habitable Zone Planet Finder. Their techniques, implemented in modular Python programs, have enabled the measurement of atomic absorption lines with improved precision, and are currently being extended to […]
NASA’s Artemis Team Returning to the Moon
NASA recently created the Artemis Team, which is a group astronauts from diverse backgrounds that are planning to walk on the Moon in 2024. This mission will involve the first ever woman to walk on the lunar surface and will be focused around scientific objectives. Furthermore, this mission will prepare NASA for their next large […]
Collecting a Sample from the Bennu Asteroid with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Touch-And-Go (TAG) spacecraft launched on Sept. 8, 2016, from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and it plans to return to Earth in 2023 with a surface sample from the asteroid titled “Bennu.” OSIRIS-REx is expected to make contact with on Bennu and it is tasked with gathering 2 ounces of regolith from […]