Published: Jan. 22, 2003

The University of Colorado at Boulder was awarded a $100,000 grant from NASA for undergraduate aerospace education, research and technology development.

NASA hopes the grant will be used to encourage higher education graduates and faculty to become more involved with the space agency.

The Colorado Space Grant Consortium, based in the CU-Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science, is one of the top Space Grant Consortiums in the country, according to Christopher Koehler, deputy director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium. It includes 15 colleges, universities and institutions throughout the state.

Of the 45 proposals NASA selected, the Colorado Space Grant Consortium was one of only a few that received the full award of $100,000 for aerospace workforce development.

To date, the Colorado Space Grant Consortium has flown three shuttle payloads, three sounding rockets, 46 high-altitude balloons and two satellite systems are being built. The two satellite systems are the Citizen Explorer Satellite and the Three Corner Satellite.

The Citizen Explorer satellite is designed to measure atmospheric ozone and solar ultraviolet radiation, providing an environmental and space education for K-12 students, significant experimentation for the scientific community and real-world experience for the undergraduate and graduate student engineers and scientists who are helping with the project.

The Three Corner Satellite was designed to obtain stereo images of small, quickly changing space phenomena like cloud formations, pollution plumes and sand or dust storms. CU-Boulder will be responsible for the imaging and End-to-End Data Systems. This responsibility entails analyzing pictures taken from space, command and data handling and mission operations.

The National Space Grant Program, mandated by Congress for NASA in 1987, consists of 52 State Consortiums in the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. All of the consortia carry out programs in education, research and public service.