The time has finally come! After a long wait for the SpaceX-10 launch….Houston…we are in SPACE!
Just this Sunday, SpaceX completed yet another historic launch. Not only did they launch the Falcon 9 from the historic Apollo/Space Shuttle Launch Pad 39A, they stuck yet another landing on the ground at Kennedy Space Center. Early this morning, the Dragon spacecraft safely reached the International Space Station with our student research on board.
This was a really exciting launch for the team at DreamUp as we had the fantastic V3PO students fly all the way from Germany to join us for the launch. These students crowd-funded their plant-growth research project and got some great advisors on board, including Airbus and BASF Crop Protection. With the team put together, the students commenced their vegetative plant propagation.
Learn more about the plant growth experiment here.
DreamUp had so much fun meeting the V3PO team. Here’s a photo of them receiving their DreamUp Wings certificates with the view of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in the background.
We also had the pleasure of working with the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program on their Mission 9 to the International Space Station, launching another 21 experiments from student delegations all over the USA – and Canada too!
Students participating in SSEP Mission 9 started as young as 5th grade and ranged all the way up to 12th grade. The 21 experiments ranged from subjects such as growing algae in space, to muscle tissue regeneration, the germination of quinoa, understanding kidney stones, and to testing all kinds of bacterial growth. Truly, the sky is not the limit for these students.
You can learn more about each of the incredible teams and their experiments on the SSEP website.
All together, DreamUp was able to bring over 55 student researchers and advisors to this launch. We really saw our students’ perseverance when on the first planned launch date…the launch was scrubbed with just 13 seconds to go! They held on to all of their excitement and brought it to the launch the following day, with big smiles and loud cheers as they saw the rocket go up, holding on tight to their experiments.
The team at DreamUp of course gives a big thank you to NanoRacks for providing launch services including engineering support, booking our experiments on this SpaceX mission, and running the on-orbit operations!
