NASA’s Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program will host seventh-grade students from Barrackville Middle School in Marion County and a mix of sixth through eighth grade students from Mountaineer Middle School in Harrison County on March 13, 2015 to participate in a Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) launch party. The event will consist of approximately 10 interactive educational stations featuring the various types of science the MMS Satellite will be conducting on its mission to study the Sun’s and Earth’s magnetic fields.
The launch window for MMS is from 10:44 p.m. to 11:14 p.m. EDT on Thursday, March 12, 2015. Students will start the morning watching video of a successful launch or launch simulation and will then visit the interactive stations with activities on magnetic fields, sun observing telescopes, the science of plasma, and more of the technology being used on this mission.
The event will be in the Robert H. Mollohan Research Center’s main exhibition hall in Fairmont, W.Va., where a life-sized model of the MMS spacecraft, built by Paw Paw School students, is on display. Activities will kick-off at 9a.m. and conclude around noon.
Members of NASA’s IV&V team who worked on MMS will be interacting with the students at some of the stations. They will be available for comment before and after the event for individual interviews. Media should contact Jennifer Neptune to request an opportunity to speak with the team.
For more information about NASA’s IV&V Program, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/ivv/home/index.html
For more information about MMS visit:
-end-
Jennifer D. Neptune
Program Analyst
NASA’s IV&V Program
Fairmont, WV 26554
304-367-8262