Students ship their project to space

Three UCF students are developing an experiment that they will be launched into space n late 2011 or 2012.

“It was a bit intimidating at first,” said Josh Steele, a computer engineering major from Jensen Beach, who’s building an experiment that will help test theories about how planets form.

Steele and two other undergraduates are working with graduate student Laura Seward and recent graduate Nico Brown to build the experiment. UCF Associate Professor Joshua Colwell is leading the project, which was one of three selected nationally to fly aboard Blue Origin’s space vehicle New Shepard.

Blue Origin is among the growing number of companies jumping into the commercial suborbital business.

Colwell is also the local organizer of the second-annual Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference being held at UCF this week. It is expected to draw 400 scientist and engineers from around the world to learn about these space flight opportunities.

Read the rest of the article from UCF Today here.