In a huge milestone for UCCS, Biology student Blake MacDonald and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering students Noah Grebe and Luke Davis are gearing up for a groundbreaking journey to space. Their experiment, titled “Calcium Sulfate Crystal Growth in Microgravity,” was meticulously prepared on Friday, October 4, and is now ready for its next stop: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.
With flawless execution, the team completed the preparation and promptly shipped the experiment and flight configuration agreement to Nanoracks, which handles payload services. Next, the team is headed to Merritt Island, Florida at the end of October for the flight. All eyes are on SpaceX’s Commercial Resupply Service (CRS-31) mission, scheduled for liftoff on a Falcon 9 rocket on November 1 at 11:40 pm (ET) from the iconic Launch Complex 39A.
Once launched, the experiment will dock with the International Space Station (ISS) within one to four days and remain in orbit for four to six weeks. During this time, the team’s work will be exposed to the unique conditions of microgravity, providing insights that are impossible to achieve on Earth. After its return, the results will be compared to a control experiment conducted back at UCCS, potentially offering new discoveries about crystal growth in space.
This extraordinary project would not have been possible without the guidance and expertise of UCCS Mechanical and Aerospace Department Associate Professor Jena McCollum and Associate Teaching Professor Lynnane George, and Pikes Peak State College Engineering Faculty and Department Chair McKenna Lovejoy. Their dedication and support have helped turn an ambitious idea into reality.
As the countdown begins, the UCCS community eagerly awaits the moment when these students’ hard work will take flight—quite literally—into space.
If you would like an opportunity to launch an experiment on the ISS in 2025, please contact Lynnane George at [email protected].
The Student Space Flight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S. and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education Internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with Nanoracks, LLC, which is working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory.