University Students to Evaluate Designs in NASA’s Astronaut Training Pool
Thirty-one student teams from across the country will test their designs in simulated microgravity this year as part of NASA’s Micro-g Neutral Buoyancy Experiment Design Teams (Micro-g NExT) activity. The second test session will be June 5-10.
Micro-g NExT challenges undergraduate research students to design, build and test a tool that addresses an authentic, current space exploration challenge. Students spent months designing and building their unique spacewalk tools, and will travel to Houston to put their prototypes to the test in NASA Johnson Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) — a 6.2-million-gallon indoor pool used to simulate microgravity for NASA astronaut spacewalk training.
Media are invited to interact with students from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. CDT Tuesday, June 6, and Friday, June 9. Media will not be permitted to submerse cameras, but NASA video of the underwater views during testing will be available.
Media who wish to attend must contact William Jeffs at 281-483-5111 or william.p.jeffs@nasa.gov, by noon Monday, June 5.
The Micro-g NExT experience includes hands-on engineering design, test operations and educational/public outreach. Professional divers will test the spacewalk tools as students direct them from the Test Conductor Room overlooking the NBL pool.
Schools participating during the June 5-10 test week are:
Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona
Art Institute of Seattle in Seattle
Columbia University in New York
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona
Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia
Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York
State University of New York Buffalo in Buffalo, New York
Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas
University of Alaska Anchorage in Anchorage, Alaska
University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign in Champaign, Illinois
University of Maryland College Park in College Park, Maryland
University of Texas Dallas in Dallas
University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Mercedes, Texas
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia
Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston
Eighty students from 12 universities participated in the first session May 22-27. To see the full list of schools, go to:
Stay up-to-date on social media using the hashtag:
#MicrogNExT
Dive deep into the Micro-g NExT program at:
https://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/
Learn more about NASA’s education programs at:
