These Hawks are Going to Fly! Space Shuttle Launch Today Brings Seminole's Class of 2010 Signatures Into Orbit

Shuttle carrying Palm Beach County student signatures.

Read about it in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper education weblog.

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STS-129
Launch Time: Monday, November 16, 2:28 p.m. EST
Launch Vehicle: Shuttle Atlantis • ISS ULF 3
Launch Site: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida

STS-129 will be the 31st U.S. mission to the International Space Station and will return Space Station crew member Nicole Stott to Earth.

Space shuttle Atlantis will deliver components including two spare gyroscopes, two nitrogen tank assemblies, two pump modules, an ammonia tank assembly and a spare latching end effector for the station's robotic arm to the International Space Station.

And, most excitingly, our Seminole Senior's Student Signatures in Space poster has been manifested to fly on STS-129. Last spring, SECME co-captain Aleen Touma lead the collection of the Class of 2010 names as Seminole Ridge High joined with more than 500 other schools worldwide to sign posters for Student Signatures in Space (S3), sponsored by NASA and Lockheed Martin.

S3 began in 1997 as a way to draw kids into space studies by giving them a personal connection to space. Participating schools receive large posters for students to sign and, after schools return the posters to Lockheed Martin, their signatures are scanned onto a disk.

After the signatures return from space, the signed poster will be returned for permanent display at Seminole Ridge, along with a flight certificate and a picture of the crew that carried the signatures into space. It usually takes about 8 to 12 weeks after the mission concludes to get all posters returned.

Seminole SECME school coordinator Erich Landstrom said, “Our goal with Student Signatures in Space is to spark kids’ interest in school and to give them a personal connection to the wonders of the universe. In SECME we use space-related activities to inspire students to continue the stellar work of today’s space program, and to prepare young people for careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.”

For more information about the STS-129 mission and its crew, visit:
NASA at http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle, and
SpaceFlight Now at http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts129/