Email spacewalk@sandiegospace.org for submission guidelines and here for further details.

1:00 pm to 3:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Project PoGo kicks off with our first planning meeting to build our very own reusable suborbital payload based on the CanSat / CubeSat format.

The suborbital payload will be flown to the edge of space on a reusable rocket. This will allow data sample collection to be taken repeatedly and as well as adjustments and improvements to be made to the payload instrumentation. Our goal is to fly twice before the end of 2012.

PoGo’s payload could study a wide variety of phenomenon besides atmosphere and climate monitoring including cosmic radiation monitoring, ozone monitoring, EM field monitoring, etc.

PoGo will consist of at least two teams. One team will focus on payload development and another team will focus on launch provider selection and ground support, aka Mission Control.

Join the Team! We need people to help in the following areas:

• team leaders (x2)
• fundraisers
• promotional and media specialists
• people good with their hands
• people knowledgeable in electronics
• software programmers
• ground support specialists
• and many others.

Update: Team Leaders will be offered a free registration for a cubesat development workshop hosted by the Silicon Valley Space Center.

SD Space members and the public are invited to participate. Please email projects@sandiegospace.org if you’d like to attend.

The San Diego Space Society is going to Space! We are announcing two opportunities where members will be able to build and fly a small satellite into orbit and another to repeatedly fly on suborbital spaceflights. The orbital opportunity will be part of the KickSat program . The suborbital opportunity is part of our Project PoGo program. Go to our Projects section for more details.

Our first planning meeting will be announced for early March. We’ll need all kinds of people and skills to accomplish this goal in 2012 – team leaders, fundraising, promotional and media specialists, people good with their hands, people knowledgeable in electronics, software programming, to name just a few.

Want to remain more Earthbound? There is another exciting opportunity for you! In collaboration with the Mars Society and utilizing their Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) – a Mars habitat analog based in Hanksville, Utah – SD Space proposes a six month educational Mars Mission culminating in a two week stay at MDRS.

All aspects of the project still need to be developed, so get involved early on in this exciting opportunity. Mission designs, Marsnauts, fundraising, etc all need to be brought together. Go to our Experiences section for more details.

Interested or just curious? Contact projects@sandiegospace.org to sign up.

12:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Interested in building something? Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects.

This month’s Saturday build session we’ll continue with our Sky Satellite project by designing and building PongSats.

Previously we built a balloon launched camera which we flew at a nearby park to a height of 250 feet. Next well start to design and build a micro sky satellite called a PongSat. What is a PongSat? It’s an ping pong ball sized experiment flown to the edge of space by balloons and/or launched in rockets. The launch and recovery opportunity is provided by JP Aerospace.

There are endless possibilities for experiments that can fit inside a ping pong ball. PongSat’s can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. Experiments can be as simple as comparing how high a ball bounces before and after being exposed to vacuum. The PongSat can carry seeds to see if exposure to cosmic rays effect their growth. Several small inexpensive computers and other electronic can fit inside a PongSat. These can be used to create a wide range of experiments. Whether carrying a marshmallow to see if it puffs up in the vacuum of near space or an entire sophisticated satellite in miniature, PongSat can create motivation, drive and passion. – JP Aerospace

Members and the public are welcome to join the project team. RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

Note: We recommend that parents participate with their children; children under 10 must have a parent present for the entire workshop.

6:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects. We’re rebuilding our Mars Exploration Rover during this build session.

Members and the public are welcome to participate. Please RSVP to events@sdspace.org if you’d like to participate.

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Sponsored by NASA, EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle School Students) is an educational outreach program allowing middle school students to take pictures of our Earth from a digital camera on board the International Space Station.

SD Space will work with local middle schools and offer after-school activities supporting the mission. If you would like your middle-school child to participate, please RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

SD Space members and the public are welcome to help out. Please let us know if you’d like to volunteer by emailing us at events@sdspace.org.

12:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Location:
Space Travelers Emporium (map)
1947 30th St. San Diego, CA 92102

Interested in building something? Get together with other SD Space members to work on space-related projects.

This month’s Saturday build session includes a DIY Sky Satellite.

We will be starting phase one of the project we selected in December. We took a page from Make magazine’s “DIY Space” issue and determined we would build our own homebuilt satellite that take payloads first to a tethered height, then phase two will launch into near-space and hopefully phase three high into sub-orbit.

Members and the public are welcome to join the project team, but please sign up by Jan. 14th. RSVP to events@sdspace.org to participate.

Note: We recommend that parents participate with their children; children under 10 must have a parent present for the entire workshop.

On Saturday, October 16th, Derek Nye and several SD Space members led a telescope building workshop at the Space Activities Lab in South Park. Five students attended the free hands-on activity, the second in a series offered by SD Space.

Before starting the build project, the students learned about telescopes from Phil Blanco, a local astronomy professor and Project ASTRO leader. They talked about how telescopes work, Galileo’s discoveries with them 400 years ago, and the kinds of things one could see with the Galileoscope (which has far better optics than Galileo’s telescope!).

After completing their new telescopes, everyone had fun trying them out in the lab, and then looking up and down the street. With a telescope mount – such as a camera tripod, some of the night time objects that can be observed in the next couple of weeks include: craters on our Moon, Jupiter and its moons, and even a special appearance by comet Hartley 2. We’ll be getting together at the Emporium soon to do just that when we have a clear night.

Contact projects@sdspace.org if you’d like to participate, or if you’re interested in attending future workshops.

On Saturday, September 18th, Derek Nye led a model rocketry workshop at the Space Activities Lab in South Park. Seven San Diego students attended the free hands-on event, the first in a series offered by SD Space.

While building their rocket kits, the students learned about aerodynamics, construction techniques, and the fundamentals of rocketry itself. Many of the kids were introduced to rocketry for the very first time. By the time we were done, they had a fully built rocket ready to fly that they built themselves, proving their own capabilities in working hands on with tools, and their ability to take on an interesting project.

Derek and the kids hope to launch their rockets at an upcoming Dart Rocketry event. Contact projects@sdspace.org if you’d like to participate, or if you’re interested in attending future workshops.

Over the summer, SD Space fielded a team for the Moonbots challenge. After the main competition was done, we continued with a mini-challenge of our own for younger kids. The program was recently featured in an article on the Calit2 website:

About 15 children ranging in age from 6 to 11 participated in the program, which was sponsored by ViaSat (a producer of satellite and other digital communications) and led by Calit2’s MyLab Director Saura Naderi. Naderi collaborated with the San Diego Space Society to recruit children for the challenge, which taught them the basics of robot design, from gear mechanics to programming.

You can view all the progress reports (including weekly video blogs) on the team’s Moonbots Mini-Challenge site.

Thanks again to Saura Naderi, Derek Nye, Moonbots, Calit2, and ViaSat for all they did to make this program work. We look forward to participating again next year.