A junior faculty specializing in experimental studies of upper atmospheric electrodynamics, chemistry and plasma physics is supported. Student support is realized from the technically proficient student population at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. A graduate degree granting program in Space Science is established following curriculum augmentation of three graduate level classes in Space Physics. This faculty augmentation, along with the established membership if Virginia polytechnic Institute in the National Institute of Aerospace establishes a new international leader in Space Science education and research with particular emphasis placed upon ethnic and gender diversity in the Space Sciences.
The primary outcome of this project was the creation of a new academic center for upper atmospheric space science and engineering research at Virginia Tech known as the Center for Space Science and Engineering Research (Space@VT). This was ultimately accomplished through the hiring of five new faculty members with broad expertise in upper atmospheric space science. This expertise includes various aspects of ground-based and space-based measurement techniques for assesment of the near earth space environment with radars, magnetometers, sounding rockets, satellites, and Global Positioning System receivers. Space@VT also has expertise in computational modeling of various aspects of upper atmospheric processes. There is clearly significant intellectual merit through this project by creating one of the few programs with such broad space science/engineering expertise at a major resarch university in the mid-Atlantic/southern United States. Space@VT has broad impact through the development of a new graduate curriculum which is a major outcome. The graduate curriculum provides training in areas of both space science (space plasmas, aeronomy, magnetospheric/ionospheric/solar wind physics) and space engineering (satellite communications, radar, GPS, space propulsion, spacecraft dyanmics/control). The program has already proven successful having produced nine PhDs and a number of MS students during the lifetime of the project. Undergraduate students are impacted through ability to take advanced undergraduate technical electives as well as opportunity for participation in undergraduate research. Outreach of Space@VT to a spectrum of local K-12 students is also an important aspect of broader impact. Many of these students are underrepresented in the Science Technology Engineering and Math STEM fields. Formal engagement of Space@VT with an Advisory Board composed of members of the space technology industry and government laboratories also add to broader impact of Space@VT outside the traditional academic environment.
