Newswise — ITHACA, N.Y. – Five students from H.T. Wiley Intermediate School in Watertown, N.Y. will watch their experiment soar from Cape Canaveral, Florida, July 21 toward the heavens on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Destination: the International Space Station.

The students proposed and built their experiment encouraged and inspired by Jefferson County Cornell Cooperative Extension, in consultation with chemical engineering faculty at Cornell University. The students’ experiment focuses on the efficacy of removing metallic rust in the microgravity of space.

“My favorite thing was testing the actual experiment,” said Agnika Ghatak, a rising seventh grader. “It’s exciting. It’s a great feeling of accomplishment that our team worked so hard for getting this experiment to go into space.”

While the midsummer launch is a highlight, about 250 students – in 11 Jefferson County, New York, schools – started this space journey in early September 2018. They conducted research and developed experiment proposals working through the Jefferson County Cornell Cooperative Extension’s 4-H Youth Development after-school program.

About 50 student-teams initiated spaceflight-experiment ideas that ranged from the potency of hand sanitizer in space to microgravity’s effect on carbon steel to understanding bacterial growth in a space station setting.

All of the Jefferson County 4-H after-school youth participated in the Students Spaceflight Experiments Program, which is part of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE).

Kathy Vaeth, senior lecturer in Cornell’s Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, invited the Watertown students to assemble the experiment at a chemistry lab at Cornell University on June 28.

Using a fluid-mixing enclosure device – a thick, flexible plastic test tube, about the size of a regular hot dog – small, prerusted iron pins were placed in the center. Students placed distilled vinegar on one side of the experiment chamber and distilled water on the other. When astronauts unclamp the vinegar side, it will remove the rust; three days later, the astronauts will unclamp the distilled water, which will neutralize the vinegar. In late August the experiment will be returned to Earth, and the students will report the results.

Mitch McCormick, CCE Jefferson County director of the 4-H after-school programs, said that judging panels and NCESSE officials were impressed with the rust experiment, saying it may create useful knowledge for future space missions. “We try to deliver research-based education and programming,” McCormick said. “This is the first 4-H program to send an experiment to space.” For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews supporting full HD, ISDN and web-based platforms.

-30-