MSSD students launch satellite into outer space

By Susan Flanigan

MSSD students (from left) Earl Allen, Steve Gagnon, and Candace Myers, are shown with Christopher Roosa, son of Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa, in the EMG computer lab after the launch of the Lunar Prospector satellite.

Via the Internet and the Moonlink program, 30 Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD) students recently completed a computer-simulated satellite launch into outer space. Moonlink, a Space Education program associated with NASA, enables middle and high school students to become actively involved in the Lunar Prospector mission. Through Moonlink, students learn about the Moon's environment with access to real data from the Prospector science team as they seek answers to questions raised during the Apollo missions. MSSD Earth science systems teacher Mary Ellsworth invited a special guest, Christopher Roosa, the son of Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa, to view the MSSD launch and share some of his father's experience with the space program.

Roosa, was eleven years old when his father flew on the Apollo 14, regaled the students with historical highlights of the Apollo program and walked them through the stages of an Apollo mission. He said that today's electronic watches are more sophisticated than the computers used on the Apollo missions. All the calculations for the rocket trajectory for the Apollo missions were done on slide rules. Roosa's family had a special "squawk box" at their home so that they could listen to his father talking to Mission Control in Houston. Roosa explained the space program's many spin-off benefits such as the development of the computer chip, graphite for lightweight tennis rackets, freeze-dried food technology, and such advances in medicine as pacemakers, vital signs monitors, and clean-room technology.

One student asked Roosa if there were any deaf astronauts. "Not yet," replied Roosa. "But that doesn't mean there can't be in the future. When I got eyeglasses in the fifth grade that knocked me out of being an astronaut. But today you can wear contacts and be accepted. So maybe the restrictions will change for people who are deaf."

After Roosa's talk, the MSSD students created their own mission control center in a computer lab in the EMG building. The students connected with the Moonlink Mission Controller on-line at individual computer stations and via a large projection screen. The Controller turned over "control" of the mission to the students, who acted out various roles such as Mission Director, Launch Director, Space Craft Engineer, Principal Investigator, and Gamma Ray Spectrometer Investigator. The mission included a simulation of launching the satellite into orbit following a pre-prepared script, real-time data acquisition, a team exercise, and an end-of-mission simulation and debriefing. The team exercise involved a situation unknown to the team until they were on mission. After launching the satellite, they learned it was threatened by an approaching solar flare. The students then had to team together and choose one of four options to save the satellite. The students chose the correct option, moved the satellite quickly with a powerful thruster burn, and thereby saving it from destruction.