Jon Zimmer

Eight students on the University of Minnesota Ballooning Team, plus Professor Flaten, flew weather balloons into the stratosphere above Indiana to observe the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, as part of NASA’s Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Program. At the AEM Department Open House on Oct. 22, 2024, ballooning students exhibited hardware and showed eclipse […]

Interested in NASA? Like doing outreach? If so, come to the kick-off of the Minnesota Space Grant’s 2024–2025 Intercollegiate Challenge, tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, October 8, 2024, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., in the Balas Atrium in Akerman Hall . See NASA-themed outreach demonstrations, then form a team to enter this year’s challenge. Generate your […]

Unique NASA Opportunity to Design, Build, and Launch High-Power Rockets  The Minnesota Space Grant Consortium (MnSGC), working with the Tripoli MN High Power Rocketry Club, hereby announces the 2024-2025 Space Grant Midwest High-Power  Rocketry Competition. The fly-off will be held in Minnesota, but this competition is open to college and university student teams from across the […]

The Minnesota Space Grant Ballooning Team at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, led by Professor James Flaten, flew payloads built by Minneapolis Public School summer camps on July 17 and July 24, 2024. The photo shows payloads and logos on the July 24 flight at the moment the balloon burst at just over 112,000 […]

“Universe In The Park” 2024 Summer Telescope Observing Program The Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics is once again hosting the “Universe in the Park” telescope observing program on Friday and Saturday evenings this summer, starting July 6, 2024. Date Day Venue July 6 Saturday Nerstrand Big Woods State Park July 12 Friday Father Hennepin State Park […]

The UMN Ballooning Team attaching sensors and video equipment. The University of Minnesota Twin Cities Stratospheric Ballooning Team has returned from Indiana where they were flying balloon-borne experiments during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. The UMN Ballooning Team was part of the “video-streaming” side (also known as  the “engineering” side) of the […]

“Eclipse Flights And Beyond” Academic High-Altitude Ballooning Conference St. Catherine University May 29–31, 2024 The Stratospheric Ballooning Association is sponsoring the 2024 Academic High Altitude Ballooning Conference at St. Catherine University, starting at 1 p.m. on May 29 and ending at Noon on May 31. The conference is open to all members of the public. […]

NASA’s Minnesota Space Grant Consortium Summer 2024 Internships Positions open until filled or the end of April,whichever comes first. Applicants must be full-time students attending a college or university in Minnesota and must be United States citizens. “Student” in this context means “in school in spring 2024 and still in school in fall 2024” (at […]

Sverdrup Visiting ScientistDr. Bala Chaudhary “Continent-Scale Aerial Dispersal of Fungi” Monday, April 15, 2024, 5 p.m. Augsburg University Hagfors 150 “Strategies for Anti-Racist Action in STEM” Convocation Lecture Tuesday, April 16, 2024, 11 a.m. Augsburg University Hoversten Chapel   “Continent-Scale Aerial Dispersal of Fungi” Mondy, April 15, 2024, 5 p.m. Dispersal is a key process […]

August 2017 Total Eclipse. Eclipse Watch Party April 8, 2024 12:45–2:30 p.m. • Akerman Hall Balas Atrium University of Minnesota 110 Union Street SE Minneapolis The Akerman Hall watch party will include observing through telescopes and solar glasses, weather permitting. The event will also feature live video-streams from NEBP balloons and from NASA sites, even […]

The U of MN – Twin Cities Stratospheric Ballooning Team is traveling to Indiana to fly balloon-borne experiments during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. The UMN Ballooning Team will be in the path of totality, where the moon completely blocks out the face of the sun for several minutes. Flight camera footage […]

The NASA Minnesota Space Grant 2024 Student Symposium on February 24 featured 11 student talks, 14 student posters, plus the finals of an intercollegiate challenge and several exhibits by student groups who have worked on Space Grant projects in the past year. Presentations for in-person attendees were held in Hagfors Center at Augsburg University. Remote […]

NASA’S Minnesota Space Grant Consortium Student Symposium Saturday, February 24, 2024 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Hagfor Center Augsburg University Minneapolis Campus 700 21st Avenue South Attend in-person or on-line Sessions Include: Student presentations on research, competitions, and other projects Talks by students who have done internships at NASA Centers Keynote: “The Juno Mission at […]

On Wednesday, October 11, 2023, after packing all of the essential equipment, the University of Minnesota’s Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP) team, all-undergraduates (plus Professor Flaten!), set off for New Mexico to study an annular solar eclipse from stratospheric ballooning platforms. Annular eclipse team (left to right): Jesse, Dr. James Flaten, Jasmine, Jess, Ashton, Alex, […]

N i g h t   )   S o n g s Under Stunning Projections of the Night Sky Friday, February 9th, 2024 7:30 pm University Church of Hope 601 13th Avenue SE Dinkytown Minneapolis An evening of music and poetry featuring the choirs of University Lutheran Church of Hope, Grace University Lutheran Church, […]

Minnesota Space Grant congratulates the Leech Lake Tribal College Rocket Team for receiving the Altitude Award and the Judge’s Award in last spring’s First Nations Launch Competition! The Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium sponsored the 14th Annual First Nations Launch Competition. More than 119 students participated in the program, representing 21 colleges and universities from eleven […]

On October 11, 2023, after packing all of the essential equipment, the University of Minnesota’s NEBP (Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project) all-undergraduate team (plus Prof. Flaten) set off for New Mexico, a 2-day, nearly-20-hour drive! Once we arrived in New Mexico, we scoped out the area and visited our potential launch and ground station sites. Through […]

Although the Bethel University Rocket Club had been around for many years, it was revived in Fall 2021 by a handful of freshmen students. Last spring, the club picked up its second consecutive win at the Midwest Rocketry Competition, coming in ahead of the University of Minnesota and Virginia Tech rocket teams. By Marcus Dip […]

The Challenge Imagine – it’s the middle of winter in Minnesota. Snowstorms and frigid temperatures have left a layer of ice and snow on your solar-powered weather station, causing it to stop working. Can you design a self-cleaning solar station that can keep itself clean enough to keep operating throughout the winter? Challenge: Design, build, […]

A team from St. Catherine University has received a grant from the Montana Space Consortium to participate in the National Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP). Through the NEBP, teams of high school and college students from across the country will conduct research during upcoming solar eclipses in 2023 and 2024 by sending weather balloons into the […]

Launch rockets and take a hands-on look at the safety, engineering, and thrill of rocketry. The University of Minnesota Duluth Bulldog Rocketry team will be joining the Northern Expressions Arts Collective for this event. It is open to the public and there will be hands-on and team activities for the whole family — including launching […]

The Space Grant 2023 Midwest High-Power Rocketry Competition was held on May 13-14, 2023. High-power rocketry teams from four states gathered to do team presentations then a fly-off for the “Precision Landing Challenge.” Congratulations to all participants! Here are the “Peer Voting” winners: Coolest Looking (renamed Hottest Looking) Rocket Milwaukee School of Engineering Best Rocket […]

This Spring the Minnesota West Community and Technical College Bluejay Team received the Best in Show Award for Experimental Design in the Plant The Moon Challenge. This hands-on challenge focuses on addressing the human need for access to nutritious food that can be grown on the Moon. Raphanus sativus The team decided to plant Cherry […]

NASA has selected the University of Minnesota Twin Cities to be a pod lead for the Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP). As a pod lead, the UMN-TC ballooning team will be central to training teams from other states to engineer the video streaming side of the project. Three other schools in Minnesota were also selected […]

“Membranes of Hungry Yeast are Tiny, Living Thermostats” Monday, April 10, 2023 • 5:00 pm Augsburg University, Hagfors 150 During the process of making bread and beer, yeast cells eventually run out of sugar to eat. They react by segregating certain lipids and proteins in one of their membranes. Under the microscope, this membrane appears […]

The Minnesota Space Grant Consortium held a day-long Student Symposium on Saturday, April 1, 2023. This symposium featured NASA-themed oral and poster presentations by over two dozen MnSGC students. There were also mid-day exhibits, talks by students who have done internships at NASA Centers, and a keynote about MnSGC project developing CubeSat miniature satellites to […]

The Bluejay Team from Minnesota West Community & Technical College won the “Best In Show Award: Evaluation of Results” in the Undergraduate and Professional Category in the Fall 2022 “Plant The Moon Challenge.” The Challenge, a program of the Institute of Competition Sciences, is a global science experiment conducted to grow plants in conditions similar […]

On Friday, February 10, 2023, James Flaten from the Minnesota Space Grant Consortium is providing large-scale projections – mostly of astronomical objects – to accompany a concert of choral and instrumental music and poetry taking place at University Lutheran Church of Hope in Dinkytown. The photo is from a past “Night Songs” event. The evening […]

Launched a little more than a year ago, on December 25, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is returning dramatic pictures of faraway regions of the universe. With a 21-inch mirror, the Webb Telescope is seven times as powerful as the Hubble Telescope. Its mission is to observe galaxies, exoplanets, and other object in the […]

Splashdown! The Artemis Orion capsule parachuted into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California on time on Sunday, December 11, 2022, at 11:40 am CST / 17:40 UTC. After traveling more than 1.3 million miles in 25 days, the record-breaking Artemis I mission sets the stage for returning astronauts to the Moon. NASA […]

Announcement of NASA’s Minnesota Space Grant Consortium (MnSGC) Solar Eclipse Ballooning Intercollegiate Challenge (2022-2023 academic year) [ Sign-ups closed on October 15, 2022. ] NEW: Informational video (17 minutes long)  https://youtu.be/OeJNMLfEfXg The Challenge Propose, then build and test, a stratospheric spacecraft (AKA a “payload”) to study aspect(s) of a solar eclipse, to be test-flown […]

High-power rocketry teams from 11 colleges and universities gathered in Wyoming, Minnesota, on Saturday, May 21, 2022, to deliver oral presentations to a panel of judges. On Sunday, May 22, 2022, the teams flew their “fleets” of rockets at the Tripoli Minnesota Rocketry Club launch field near North Branch, Minnesota. Congratulations to the following “Judged […]

High-power rocketry teams from 11 colleges and universities will gather in Wyoming, Minnesota, on Saturday, May 21, 2022, to deliver oral presentations to a panel of judges. On Sunday, May 22, 2022, the teams will fly their “fleets” of rockets at the Tripoli Minnesota Rocketry Club launch field near North Branch, Minnesota (if weather and […]

The Minnesota Space Grant Consortium is pleased to announce the top three teams for the 2021-2022 “GLEAM Lunar Robotics” intercollegiate challenge. * First Place * Winona State University Lunar Scouts  * Second Place * Concordia College Moorhead Lunar Robotics Team  * Third Place * Minnesota State University Moorhead The Land Dragons  Congratulations […]

The Future is Alive! “Physics Lessons From Biology” Jennifer Ross, Ph.D. Physics Department Chair Syracuse University Zoom Recording from Tuesday, April 12, 2022 Augsburg University Imagine a world where potholes in roads seal themselves like cuts in your skin, your body reports directly to your doctor on pain and medication, and we can explore and […]

On Saturday, March 26, 2022, the Minnesota Space Grant Consortium held a statewide Student Symposium at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. In-person attendees gathered at Akerman Hall. Sessions were also streamed on Zoom for remote attendees. This year’s symposium marked the inclusion of in person presentations and exhibits. The first symposium, in March 2021, […]

Saturday, March 26, 2022 9 a.m. – 4:45 p.m. (in person in Akerman Hall (map) or on-line on Zoom (links in abstract booklet)) The nearest parking (though not the least expensive) is in the Washington Avenue Parking Ramp. NASA’s Minnesota Space Grant Consortium (MnSGC) presented a free, day-long student symposium for students to share about […]

High-Power Rocketry (remote) Lessons are now finished, and rockets are flying! Five of the rockets built during this fall’s Minnesota Space Grant Consortium High-Power Rocketry (remote) Lessons program were taken to the Tripoli, Minnesota, launch site near North Branch and launched on December 4, 2021. The remaining rockets will be flown in the spring. To […]

 For students enrolled in Professor Tonnis ter Veldhuis course at Macalaster College it literally is all about rocket science. In this physics course the lab is learning how to design, simulate, build, and launch a high-power rocket. The course covers standard material such as Newton’s laws, conservation of energy, linear momentum, angular momentum, oscillations, […]

The Minnesota Space Grant Consortium and Tripoli MN, a local high-power rocketry club, has now announced rules for the 2021-2022 Space Grant Midwest High-Power Rocketry Competition. This intercollegiate competition, entitled the “Return to Flight: Fleet Challenge,” should appeal to teams of both new and experienced high-power rocketry students, allowing them to demonstrate their design/build/fly “chops” […]