The space-grant colleges are educational institutions in the United States that comprise a network of fifty-three consortia established in 1988 for the purpose of outer space-related research.
[1] Each consortium is based in one of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, or Guam,[2] and each consists of multiple independent space-grant institutions, with one of the institutions acting as lead.
The catch-all term Space Grant refers back to these previous federal programs.
The first meeting of the National Council of Space Grant Directors took place from January 16 to January 19, 1990, at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Columbia, Maryland, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, California.
[5] Building Leaders for Advancing Science and Technology (BLAST) BLAST is a three-day summer event that takes place at Virginia's Old Dominion University.
[7] eXploration Systems and Habitation (X-Hab) 2019 Academic Innovation Challenge The eXploration Systems and Habitation (X-Hab) challenge seeks better the academic and technological abilities of university students.
[8] There is an Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Division where university students can compete to win awards worth $15,000–50,000 for a functional design that the AES finds useful and, or, interesting.
[8] John Mather Nobel Scholars Established in 2008, the John Mather Nobel Scholars is a scholarship program open to NASA-Goddard Space Flight.
[9] The program provides $3,000 so that a chosen participant can share their research paper with NASA professionals.
[10] Such competitions entail internships, senior design projects, and selective grants.
The program focuses on NASA-related research provided by NASA's STEM professionals.
[10] This was done for the people to meet the increasing demand for citizens with STEM majors.
Virginia Earth System Science Scholars The Virginia Earth System Science Scholars is a STEM-centered program where participants participate with NASA's professional researchers.
[15] The Virginia Space Coast Scholars (VSCS) program is an online, week long, STEM-centered program that focuses on the study of NASA's missions.
"[10] Due to his efforts, many NASA ballooning centered programs were created.