Ground Crew Educational Program

Experience Science Up Close and Personal

Working with science in the classroom is one thing, but science in the field is something more. Experience science first had by becoming a member of the Teachers in Space Ground Crew. Working with the Perlan team, you will handle science payloads created by students from across the country.

The Ground Crew will work in shifts of four, spending two weeks learning and working on science in El Calafate, Argentina. Each day the glider flies, you and your fellow team members will prepare the experiments for flight, verify their operation and retrieve data for posting to the internet. Additionally your team will capture video and images to share with students around the world.

Educator Ground Crew Program – “It’s Like Gliding on Mars…”

The Perlan II glider is designed to fly up to altitudes of 90,000 feet by soaring on mountain vortices – strong currents of air formed along mountain ranges. At that height, the glider is flying in air as thin as the atmosphere of Mars: a perfect analog to experimental methods of exploring the red planet.

Mission Schedule

On days when the Perlan II glider flies, the Ground Crew team will prepare, test, load, unload, and refresh the experimental payloads. Any days when the glider does NOT fly, the following activities are proposed: Missions start: 9 Jul, 23 Jul, 6 Aug, 20 Aug, and 3 Sep 2017
Week 1
Sunday Travel Buenos Aires to El Calafate, Argentina
Monday Meet the Perlan Glider crew; learn payload management
Tuesday Data management and upload procedures
Wednesday Building Lesson Plans from the Perlan Mission experiments
Thursday Stratospheric Mountain Waves and Earth’s Atmosphere
Friday Visit local schools and museums
Saturday Weather Balloon Launch and data analysis
Week 2
Sunday Individual projects: blogging, photography, video etc
Monday Build / test lessons on payload management
Tuesday Build / test lessons on data management
Wednesday Build / test lessons from Perlan Mission experiments
Thursday Further exploration of Mountain Waves and Atmosphere
Friday Buenos Aires schools and museums
Saturday Depart Buenos Aires

 

Register

The cost for this two week science excursion is $8,000 per teacher. You can also sponsor a teacher and send the both of you to this once in a lifetime experience. The $16,000 sponsor package allows you and the teacher of your choice to work together as part of the flight team. You also get acknowledgement of your sponsorship on the web, in our promotional materials and press releases.

If you would like to learn more about the Ground Crew Opportunity, please fill out this form and submit. We will get more information to you promptly.