HCT students to join Rocket City Space Pioneers in quest for Google X Prize

(From release) The Huntsville Center for Technology (HCT) will play an integral role in the Rocket City Space Pioneers’ (RCSP) race to the moon mission to win $20 million, first prize in the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. The RCSP today unveiled the details of “Engineering Meets Education,” a unique educational initiative that will allow the RCSP to engage high school students with their engineers and scientists to assist in designing, building and flying aerospace hardware. The RCSP is the Huntsville-based team competing to send a rover to the moon by 2014, move it 500 meters and send back video in a specified format.

The RCSP team is led by Dynetics and comprised of Teledyne Brown Engineering, Draper Laboratory, Andrews Space, Spaceflight Services, the University of Alabama Huntsville, the Von Braun Center for Science and Innovation (VCSI), and now HCT.

The partnership announcement was made at an event held at the Huntsville Center for Technology. During the event, students fired a rocket engine designed by Tim Pickens for Bigelow Aerospace. Pickens  is team leader of RCSP and a former HCT student. Students also operated a robot from NASA provided by VCSI.

The HCT is the technical training center for Huntsville City schools. It serves students from all seven high schools in 14 skilled training areas. Students participate in projects such as NASA’s HUNCH (High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware) program and the Great Moonbuggy Race. Students have created hardware for astronaut training and have even done rapid prototyping for the ARES program.

Last summer, CAD students won first place in a national design contest, and the school took third place at the national competition with a chapter display depicting an ARES rocket floor system. The school’s moonbuggy racing team has won numerous honors, including three first-, two second- and two third-place wins within the past five years. In May, the school received the NASA Educational Partnership Award.

"We are proud to partner with this outstanding educational institution,” said Pickens. “The students here are making some outstanding accomplishments. This institution continues to produce some amazing students who know how to build real hardware with the knowledge they have gained.”

Joy Dukemineer, school counselor, said, “The Huntsville Center for Technology is thrilled to be a part of this educational experience that is ‘out of this world’! This partnership provides our students the opportunity to collaborate with experts in the engineering field while working on current and futuristic projects as they relate to space travel. Nowhere else can a high school student get this opportunity!”

The Google Lunar X PRIZE is a $30 million competition that challenges teams from across the globe to build and launch to the moon a primarily privately funded spacecraft capable of completing a series of exploration and transmission tasks. Currently, 23 teams are in the competition.

For more information about the Rocket City Space Pioneers, go to www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com.