A SPONSORED STUDENT SPACE SCIENCE COMPETITION IN HOKKAIDO FOR SUBORBITAL PAYLOAD FLIGHTS IN THE XP SPACEPLANE

摘要

Rocketplane Global, Inc. (RGI) is one of the leading new suborbital spaceplane development and operations companies, based in Oklahoma City, OK. The XP spaceplane is a horizontal takeoff and landing vehicle which uses conventional afterburning turbojets for takeoff and landing operations and a LOX / kerosene rocket engine for the ascent to space. The home base for RGI is the Oklahoma Spaceport, which has been developed by the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority (OSIDA) from a former USAF B-52 Strategic Air Command base in western Oklahoma. RGI has also initiated collaboration with the Hokkaido Aerospace Science Technology Incubation Center (HASTIC) for development of a secondary spaceport in Hokkaido Japan in the Tokachi District. As part of RGFs collaboration with HASTIC, a student science experiment from Hokkaido will be carried on a suborbital test flight, along with other test payloads from Japan. HASTIC has organized a regional student science competition in cooperation with the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, and received over 200 applications for student payloads from junior high, high school and university students. This paper will describe the methods and results of the HASTIC Student Science Competition in Hokkaido and the public outreach and educational benefits to all parties that have resulted from this collaboration.