LaunchOregon provides a cost-effective way to expose students and teachers of all ages to hands-on science, engineering, and math activities in a near-space environment. Practical team-building skills are developed as students prepare for the next generation workforce in aerospace, science, engineering, and technology.

LaunchOregon Teams George Fox University Oregon Institute of Technology Oregon State University Portland State University Southern Oregon University Western Oregon University LaunchOregon in the News! Photos NEW!! Pictures from the November 29th OSU Ballon Launch and Recovery News.com: Firefox fans find unique ways to celebrate browser OSU Linux Users Group: Firefox-One album Press Coverage LaunchOregon Links Balloons, NASA Slashdot: Slashback: Firefox fans at Oregon State celebrate 100 million downloads. Pocket-lint: Firefox reaches 100 million downloads OSU Daily Barometer: Sky's the Limit for Firefox Corvallis Gazette-Times: OSU celebrates success of Firefox IT News Online: Firefox Crosses 100 Million Download Milestone Search Engine Journal: Firefox Celebrates 100 Million Downloads in Space Red Herring: Firefox Marks 100M Downloads Press Releases OSU Space program helps schoolkids aim high, dream big

Program Goals

• Expose students to the design of space hardware
• Provide a platform for students to fly their designs in engineering and science
• Develop teambuilding skills
• An inexpensive way to get students involved with and excited about NASA

Program Outline

• Students design and create payloads that carry experiments and data collection tools.
• Participating universities provide a launch platform to successfully launch the payloads.
• "Chase teams" follow the path of the balloon, tracked by Global Positioning System (GPS) to recover payloads
• Students analyze the recovered data.

Why a Balloon?

• Weather balloons provide an inexpensive method of transportation, carrying payloads to high-altitudes (50~100,000 ft) to provide an experience with a near-space environment
• Designing and implementing a balloon payload in a team environment can offer a unique educational experience. It is one of the few opportunities where students can become involved in all aspects of a scientific experiment.
• Relatively short development time allows students to have hands-on experience building the payload, flying it, and analyzing the data that is gathered, while developing team-building skills.
• Instruments such as GPS and cameras placed on balloons are recovered approximately 90% of the time after the completion of the flight. This means that the same instrument can be used multiple times, lending itself to a cost-effective program.