The KidSat project

Imagine viewing our world from space; a world astronauts have described as "bright and vivid" with "no borders or boundaries". Then consider how much can be learned by studying Earth from this unique vantage point. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began a three-year pilot program in 1995 designed by a team of scientists, educators, engineers, and high school and college students to share astronauts' unique view of Earth with middle school students. This pilot program was called KidSat. KidSat's primary objective was to merge real-time professional space flight with middle school education by providing students with equal access and direct contribution to the United States space program for the exploration of the Earth. KidSat's long-term intent was to produce higher student achievement and increased competence in science, math, technology, and geography, and to promote an interactive understanding of Earth as an integrated system. Similar to the regular duties of astronauts, scientists, and engineers, students around the nation planned observations and captured images to study Earth's dynamic, fragile environment, using a remotely operated high-resolution color digital camera onboard the Space Shuttle, custom flight software, the Internet, NASA's infrastructure, and a mission operations infrastructure that linked middle schools to the Shuttle through a student-built mission Control Gateway. Using accompanying curriculum, students determined which areas of Earth they wanted to explore and photograph along the Shuttle's flight path. Orbiting communications satellites and the Internet transmitted commands, telemetry and images to and from the classrooms. Via the Shuttle cargo bay video camera. NASA TV carried video of the mission and the Earth for simultaneous viewing in classrooms. The KidSat pilot program was conceived in November 1993 and ended in December 1997. This paper summarizes the results of this program.