Published: April 12, 2005

U.S. Rep. Mark Udall will be on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus Friday, April 15, to meet with undergraduate students from nine state colleges and universities involved in the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.

The students are gathering at CU-Boulder as part of two statewide education and research efforts involving hands-on coursework and the April 16 launch of 23 student-built payloads on two large balloons from Windsor, Colo. The instruments were designed and built by undergraduate teams and will be carried to an altitude of roughly 20 miles. They will explore technologies including infrared imagery, ozone measurements, radiation monitoring and sonic boom detection.

"Mark Udall has traditionally been a big supporter of Colorado Space Grant Consortium students, and we are pleased that he is coming to campus," said Bernadette Garcia, associate director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium. Udall will speak at a dinner for students involved in the program called Colorado Students and Mentors Applying Research and Technology in Space, or C-SMARTS, which is funded by the Colorado Institute of Technology, as well as the DemoSat III program funded by NASA.

Participants in the two events include students from CU-Boulder, CU-Colorado Springs, Colorado State University, the University of Northern Colorado, the Colorado School of Mines, Pikes Peak Community College, CSU-Pueblo, Western State College, Metropolitan State College, Mesa State College and Fort Lewis College.

The Colorado Space Grant College provides college students with hands-on experience in designing, flying, building, operating and analyzing space engineering and science experiments. The consortium also provides outreach activities for K-12 students across Colorado.