Alaska Space Grant Program

Affiliates

The Alaska Space Grant Program is a consortium of four academic institutions and one non-profit science museum. The four academic institutions include the three main campuses of the University of Alaska statewide system at Anchorage (UAA), Fairbanks (UAF), and Juneau (UAS), plus Alaska Pacific University which is a private university in Anchorage. Together with their associated branch campuses, these four institutions include approximately 99% of the university students within Alaska. The Imaginarium science museum in Anchorage rounds out the consortium with programs for precollege students and the general public. Each affiliate brings unique strengths to the consortium. We have endeavored to develop Space Grant activities at each affiliate that focus upon these strengths and collectively provide a balanced statewide program.

Alaska Student Rocket Project Scholarships & Fellowships

Research Scholarships and Fellowships

Public Relations Internships

NASA Academy Fellowships

Director: Neal Brown

  The University of Alaska Fairbanks is the lead institution for the Alaska Space Grant Program, and the research center for the statewide university system. The original RFP for Phase I of the NSGCFP identified UAF as one of only 37 institutions in the nation that was eligible for designation as a Space Grant Institution. UAF is the home to a number of unique aerospace-related facilities. The Geophysical Institute was created at UAF shortly after World War II to investigate problems in high latitude communication. It is now an internationally known center for a broad range of geophysical research, including space physics and atmospheric science. The facilities at the Geophysical Institute include the Poker Flat Research Range, which is the only university-operated sounding rocket range in the world, and the Alaska SAR Facility which provides downlink and data processing facilities for an international fleet of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. The International Arctic Research Center will open at UAF in 1999 to further extend this research infrastructure. UAF also offers the only degree programs in electrical and mechanical engineering within a 1400-mile radius (a civil engineering program also exists at UAA.

University of Alaska Southeast

Juneau Icefield Research Program

Director: Cathy Connor

The University of Alaska Southeast is a growing regional university with a main campus in Juneau and extended campuses in Sitka and Ketchikan. Space Grant activities at UAS focus on Earth Science in conjunction with their degree program in Environmental Science. GPS technology is used to link field data with satellite imagery to study glacial, hydrological, and chemical weathering processes in local watersheds. Space Grant activities at UAS began in 1996 with the appointment of Cathy Connor as the affiliate director. Cathy also serves as a trainer for the GLOBE program and has begun working with the Colorado Space Grant Consortium to develop training programs for Alaska teachers involving the Citizen Explorer spacecraft.

Alaska Pacific University

Education Resource Center at APU

Liftoff at APU

Director: Ted Munsch

The Alaska Pacific University is a small private university in Anchorage. APU offers an excellent teacher education program that helps teachers throughout Alaska to develop and enhance curriculum to address national and state standards. APU is also home to the Alaska Science Center and the NASA Regional Education Resource Center (ERC) for Alaska, which disseminates NASA curriculum enhancement materials to teachers throughout Alaska. APU became an ASGP academic affiliate in 1996 under the guidance of affiliate director Ted Munsch, who also chairs the education department at APU. Space Grant activities at APU have focused on involving education students in the ERC and developing aerospace-related curriculum enhancement materials for distribution in rural Alaska. In 1998, Ted received a grant through the NASA Nova program to restructure APU’s integrated science pre-service course to include curriculum enhancement materials that support NASA’s Earth Science strategic enterprise.

 

Imaginarium Science Discovery Center

Director: Chris Cable

     The Imaginarium Science Discovery Center is a non-profit science museum in Anchorage dedicated to promoting the creative exploration of science concepts through discovery-based models that reach out and involve all facets of Alaska’s diverse population. The Imaginarium became an ASGP affiliate in 1997. Under the direction of affiliate director Susan Mishler, the Space Grant activities at the Imaginarium have focused on the development of new hands-on exhibits featuring Mars in 1997 and the International Space Station in 1998. The Imaginarium serves approximately 100,000 people each year, including 400 school group field trips.

 

Director: Larry Porter

     The Challenger Learning Center of Alaska is a private nonprofit organization with a goal of encouraging interest in the fields of mathematics, science, and technology. The primary tools for this are through conferences held at the center and through training sessions. The facility consists of a 22,000 square foot high tech conference center located in Kenai, Alaska. The conference center hosts simulated space missions requiring a minimum of fourteen people and a maximum of thirty-two people. Alternatively, internet based missions can be conducted with as few as six people. Internet based misions can be conducted with participants distributed both with particpants in the Alaska center or throughout the world. They also offer corporate training programs including Interview Missions and Diagnostic Missions to help managers better characterize there employees. These training sessions can be ran either with CLCA staff or the corporations own managers.

Industrial Affiliates

     ASGP faces unique challenges in recruiting industrial affiliates since no major aerospace firms are currently located in Alaska. We have had temporary, but productive, relationships with two industrial partners: Lockheed Space Sciences Laboratory in Palo Alto, California and Space Industries International, Inc. in League City, Texas; both of these firms provided summer internship opportunities for students from UAF.

     However, the future looks promising for developing new relationships with industrial partners. Under the leadership provided by the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation (AADC), there is an emerging aerospace industry within Alaska involving the launch of high inclination satellites from the Kodiak Launch Complex and the tracking of those satellites from ground stations in Fairbanks. Our close working relationship with AADC has already resulted in a new research collaboration between UAF and Los Alamos National Laboratories and a new satellite tracking station installed on the engineering building at UAF.