Viewing page 2 of 25

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

EarthKAM Concept 
• Middle School student control and Earth-looking camera on the Space Shuttle
• "Mission Control Center" at UCSD makes this possible

Scenario
• Digital camera mounted in Space Shuttle Window (by astronauts)
• Commanded from ground (by middle School students, thru UCSD)
• takes photos of the Earth 
• Photos put on web for students (~hours)

History
• Begun ~3 years ago
• Flown on 4 Space Shuttle flights
• Gradual Scaling of:
-- Control Center architecture (USCD)
-- NUmber of participating schools (from 3 to 95)

4 components of Earthkam
• Space Shuttle and camera
• Kids in classrooms
• USCD Control Center (links the two)
• Image archive (www)

Shuttle/Camera
• Shuttle
-- altitude ~ 140 - 300 miles
-- speed ~ 5 mi/sec (!)

• Camera
-- Nikon with Kodak back (2 K x 3 K CCD)
-- 18 MB TIF color images (~ 70 km x 100 km) 
-- 260 MB PCMCIA card
-- SCSI to ThinkPad (with Earthkam software)

Classrooms
• Before the Shuttle flight: Curriculum
-- Geography (maps, etc.)
-- Earth Science 
-- Math; technology
-- Space Science (earth/sun; orbits)
• After the flight: "Research Projects"
-- e.g. deforestation, wetlands, etc., using images
• During the flight: "SMOC"