Spotlight Archives
STS-132 Atlantis Rollout
Keegan McCoy, a senior honors student at Penn State majoring in Electrical Engineering and Astronomy/Astrophysics had the opportunity to see the STS-132 Space Shuttle Atlantis rollout on April 21, 2010. STS-132 is the next shuttle mission to visit the International Space Station, targeted for May 14, 2010, and is scheduled to be the final flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. See more of Keegan's photos here.
NASA Internship Experience
I'm Keegan McCoy, a senior honors student at Penn State majoring in Electrical Engineering and Astronomy/Astrophysics. This summer I worked at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD as a member of the NASA Academy internship program. My individual research project involved working as a systems engineer in developing an optical test plan at the Integrated Science Instrument Module level for the James Webb Space Telescope's Fine Guidance Sensor and Tunable Filter Imager using internal calibration lamps and the Optical telescope element SIMulator.
The NASA Academy was truly a life changing experience. For anyone interested in the space industry, this is definitely the internship for which to apply. I gained confidence through applying my knowledge on the job and I grew comfortable with the NASA work environment. Even more importantly, the NASA Academy provided an insider's view to the entire space industry, from NASA's Constellation Program, to space policy organizations and commercial space companies. My Academy visited other NASA centers and contracting companies, listened to speakers from throughout the space industry, took part in group and individual leadership training, completed a group project, and formed friendships that will last a lifetime. I now have the confidence going forward that I can successfully work for NASA and one day become an astronaut.
My goal is to work at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) and become an astronaut. I'm staying a few extra years at Penn State to earn my master's degree in Electrical Engineering, but I'm also trying to get into JSC's co-op program so I can eventually start working full-time at JSC as a civil servant. I want to earn another master's degree or possibly a doctorate in aeronautics and astronautics from the University of Texas at Austin or the University of Colorado at Boulder, focusing on orbital mechanics, astrodynamics, and guidance, navigation, and control. Once working in Houston, I intend on joining the Air Force Reserve as either a space and missile operations or intelligence officer. I have lofty career goals and exciting plans for my life, but my journey truly began this summer with my NASA internship funded by the PA Space Grant.
2009 Balloon Workshop at Taylor University
Faculty from around the Commonwealth were busy this summer! John Helferty from Temple University, Bruce Kothman from University of Pennsylvania, Wookwon Lee from Gannon University and Albert Lozano-Nieto from Penn State University at Wilkes-Barre all attended the 2009 Balloon Workshop at Taylor University. They were introduced to high-altitude ballooning, different payload projects, near-space environments, and FAA Rules. They built their own payloads and conducted a launch of their own! The space grant looks forward to seeing them implement ballooning programs at their respective universities and is happy to support their efforts.
Exploration Day!
Exploration Day 2009 was a huge success! Thank you to everyone who was able to join us on Saturday, April 18th at the Bryce Jordan Center. More than 2600 attendees joined more than 250 exhibitors and volunteers for a day of fun and learning celebrating the importance of a strong Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. There was a 50' scale model of the Space Shuttle, a "Moon Tree" planting, a planetarium, and a question and answer session with Dr. Jim Pawelczyk, a former NASA astronaut. This years event was sponsored by the NASA PA Space Grant Consortium and The Eberly College of Science. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated this year, we look forward to seeing you again next spring! For more information and photos from the event, please see http://explorationday.psu.edu.
2008 HyspIRI Space Grant Students - Summer as a rocket scientist
A NASA Earth-observing mission, scheduled to launch in 2015, will collect a tremendous amount of information about the planet's ecosystems - enough to fill hundreds of computer 
hard drives with data every single day.
For a solution to this information overload, JPL turned to a group of six college students from around the United States who spent their summers working at the Laboratory as part of the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program.
The mission, called Hyperspectral Infrared Imager, or HyspIRI for short, will use two specially-designed cameras to take pictures of Earth's surface in multiple wavelengths of light. The images will provide information on everything from drought conditions to the plant species populating an area. "It's kind of like a camera on steroids," explained Tony Tao, a student Space Grant fellow from Pennsylvania State University. read more
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