Houston, TX—December 19th, 2014 – DreamUp, powered by NanoRacks, is a nonprofit organization now providing a place for student project teams to raise required funds to fly a science experiment to the International Space Station (ISS).
The goal of DreamUp is to help students integrate into the commercial space community by delivering their experiments via NanoRacks to the U.S. National Laboratory onboard the ISS.
“Whether you are a large company or a high school student, space is complex…and although it isn’t quite as expensive as in the past, it’s still outside of the average student budget” says DreamUp Director Patricia Mayes. “Our platforms give access to the frontlines of space research and we see all of our educational payloads as a contribution to the space industry. We are thrilled to see NASA and the ISS Program Office supporting commercial and student research on Station.”
DreamUp allows junior high, high school, and undergraduate college students to take advantage of NanoRacks’ three standardized research platforms on the International Space Station by establishing an account for each team to hold donations towards the costs. These platforms include: Nanolabs, and the NanoRacks Platform-3 and Centrifuge. Find out more about NanoRacks’ standardized research platforms onboard the ISS.
The first team to join the revamped DreamUp program calls themselves “Chicks in Space.” This team, made up of three sisters, is on the search for more science than they receive in a regular school day. The sisters, Lillith, MaryAnn, and Adia, invented a microgravity plant growing chamber named ‘The Garden of E.T.O.N. (Extra Terrestrial Organic Nutrition). They placed as semi-finalists in a 2013 National STEM contest and now want to test their project on the ISS. The Garden of E.T.O.N. uses centrifuge to water the plants in space.
The girls have raised $1,200 out of a required $15,000 to get to space. To learn more about Chicks’ in Space experiment, check out their experiment.com page.
To further engage space youth, students across the world now have an opportunity to report where they spot the ISS flying over them, and tweet their story with the hashtag #ISSDreamUp for the chance to win a prize each month from DreamUp and NanoRacks.
About NanoRacks, LLC:
NanoRacks LLC was formed in 2009 to provide commercial hardware and services for the U.S. National Laboratory onboard the International Space Station via a Space Act Agreement with NASA. NanoRacks’ main office is in Houston, Texas, right alongside the NASA Johnson Space Center. The Business Development office is in Washington, DC. The Company seeks to democratize outer space utilization by owning and marketing its own family of research equipment and by providing low-cost, high quality services in low-earth orbit and beyond.
To date over 200 payloads have been deployed by the Company on the International Space Station and our customer base includes the European Space Agency (ESA) the German Space Agency (DLR,) the American space agency (NASA,) US Government Agencies, Planet Labs, Urthecast, Space Florida, NCESSE, Virgin Galactic, pharmaceutical drug companies, and organizations in Vietnam, UK, Romania and Israel. Our customer base has propelled NanoRacks into a leadership position in understanding the emerging commercial market for low-earth orbit utilization.