More than 100 student teams from around the globe will drive their specially crafted lunar rovers through a challenging course of rugged, moon-like terrain at NASA's 17th annual Great Moonbuggy Race in Huntsville, Ala., April 9-10.

Some 1,088 high school, college and university students from 20 states and Puerto Rico, Canada, Germany, Bangladesh, Serbia, India and Romania are expected to participate in the race at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center.

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va., -- Not much bigger than a child's toy block, two spacecraft designed and built by university students in Kentucky and California will fly in space for a short period this month to gather information that may be applied to future small Earth orbiting space vehicles.

The spacecraft will fly on a NASA suborbital Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket between 6 and 9 a.m.(EST), March 11, from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The backup launch days are March 12 and 13.

Image: CU-Boulder Professor Xinlin Li holds a tiny spacecraft that will carry a CU student-built instrument package into space in 2012 to measure the behavior of so-called "killer electrons" in space that can have negative impacts on spacecraft and astronauts. Image courtesy Emilia Reed, CU-Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics

The University of Colorado at Boulder has been awarded $840,000 from the National Science Foundation for students to build a tiny spacecraft to observe energetic particles in space that should give scientists a better understanding of solar flares and their interaction with Earth's atmosphere.

The three-year grant to CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and the aerospace engineering sciences department involves the development of a 5-pound, loaf of bread-sized spacecraft carrying a miniature instrument package to observe energetic particles tied to "space weather" in the near-Earth environment. CU-Boulder graduate students working with CU-Boulder faculty and LASP scientists and engineers will develop, integrate and test the experiment as well as conduct subsequent mission operations and data analysis.

Moon Work Design Contest Offers NASA Internships to Winners

"The 2010 NASA Moon Work engineering design challenge seeks to motivate college students by giving them first-hand experience with the process of developing new technologies. To participate in the contest, students will submit their original design for tools or instruments that can help astronauts live and work on the moon. Top-ranked students will be offered a chance to intern with a team from NASA's Exploration Technology Development Program."

ESA's 'Fly Your Thesis!' programme made its successful debut during ESA's 51st Parabolic Flight Campaign, held 25 October to 5 November. Four student teams from five European countries took advantage of this new educational initiative to conduct microgravity experiments on the Airbus A300 'Zero G' aircraft.

'Fly Your Thesis!' was introduced by ESA's Education Office in close coordination with ESA's Directorate of Human Spaceflight in 2008. It provides students with a unique opportunity to perform scientific experiments in microgravity as part of their Masters or PhD theses. The first participants were chosen in January 2009, after a rigorous selection process.

NASA ESMD: Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) was developed by the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) specifically to create a constellation of new capabilities, supporting technologies and foundational research that enables sustained and affordable human and robotic exploration. This competition is one of many projects designed to contribute to our Nation's efforts in achieving excellence in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. Join NASA's mission to bring us to the moon, Mars and beyond by submitting a research paper on one of the four ESMD topics listed below. Your research may be used as the solution to current NASA challenges.

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NASA is accepting applications from students at U.S. colleges and universities who want to send their experiments to the edge of space on a high-flying scientific balloon.

The annual NASA project provides near space access for 12 undergraduate and graduate student experiments to be carried by a NASA high-altitude research balloon. The flights typically last 15 to 20 hours and reach an altitude of 23 miles. Experiments may include compact satellites or prototypes.

The experiments are flown aboard the High Altitude Student Platform, or HASP, a balloon-born instrument stack launched from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility's remote site in Fort Sumner, N.M. The goals of the project are to provide a space test platform to encourage student research and stimulate the development of student satellite payloads and other space-engineering products.

"Welcome to AcademyApp.com. Here students can apply to the NASA Academy at Ames, Glenn, Goddard, and Marshall with a single application. An applicant for Research Associate with the NASA Academy must:

* have a demonstrated interest in space
* have a previous internship or project experience
* be a junior, senior, or first or second year graduate student in Fall 2010
* be in high academic standing (GPA of 3.0 or greater)
* be a US citizen (Note: The NASA Academy at Ames will also consider applicants from Canada.)"