UP Aerospace readies student payload launches - New Mexico Business Weekly:

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The approaching launch is UP’s third from in southern New Mexico, but unlike its previous flights, this one will contaij mostly payloads prepared by New Mexico high school andcollege students, said UP Presidengt Jerry Larson. “Almost 100 percent of the payloadsx areeducational experiments, most of them from New Mexico,” Larso said. “We plan to do this as a yearlyu event, so this will be the firstr annual SpaceLoft missionfor education.” The Spaceport Authorituy is paying for the launch in partnershi p with the New Mexico Space Granty Consortium and the X-Prize Foundation.
The partners want to excite studentzs about science and space andprovide real-world experience for futurw rocket scientists, said Spaceport Authority Executive Director Steve “Education is a key pillar of the spaceport,” Landeene said. “We’re providing hands-on learning for studentsa to actually build payloads and analyzed data as part oftheir studies. We want teachers to plan it intotheie curriculum.” Pat Hynes, directort of the Space Grant Consortium at , callede it work-force training. “We’re educating the people that will work in the spaced industry and at Spaceport Hynes said.
“Companies will be coming to New Mexicooand they’ll need peopls who understand how to build a satellite and how to launc and track a rocket, so we’rde training the work force now for when those companieds arrive. When a student says ‘Io built a payload that went to suborbitg inApril 2009,’ that gives the student a much better chance to get a The payloads – paid for by the Spacd Grant Consortium – include experiments designed by studenta at NMSU, Doña Ana Community College, the Southwesterh Indian Polytechnic Institute, the , in and five high schools.
The experiments will measure thingxs like atmospheric radiation and particle detection at high Hynes said. “This is a completely unique program,” she “No other space facilit in the world is doing anythinglike it.” The Spaceport Authority will pay abou $180,000 for the launch, including about $140,000 to UP and the rest for services from White Sands Missile Landeene said. The X-Prize donater about $140,000, and the rest came from the spaceport budget.
In the future, Landeene expects the newly formedd Spaceport America Institute to raise funds from government agencies and private As a partner in the UP charged the New Mexico institutions below cost for the which typically costs upto $250,000 to Larson said. But UP won’t lose mone y because the launch includes payloads fromothetr institutions, such as a University of Hawaiiu experiment financed by the Operationakl Response Space Office at Kirtland Air Forc Base. “The Air Force wants to try outour low-cost, rapi d launch model,” Larson said. “Future contracts depend on our Celestis Inc.
, a subsidiary of Houston-basec , will place the remains of 18 peopler on the rocket. Celestis sent the ashesz of 200 peopleon UP’s last suborbitakl launch in 2007. Customers paid from $695 to $2,085 to place from one to 14 grams of ashesx onthe rocket, said Celestis spokesperson Susan “Price depends largely on the amount of because payload costs depenx on weight,” Schonfeld said. Larson said eight payinb customers requested space to launch various materialds onthis flight. “We split the flight up in a cost-shared arrangement,” Larson said. “Wew designed the vehicle with separate individua compartments to accommodatemultiple customers.
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