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CORNING, N.Y. -- SUNY Corning Community College’s Cameron Jensen was selected to participate in the NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) program. Jensen, a sophomore engineering sciences major, successfully participated in the first two missions of a three-mission experience, with the most recent mission completed on October 26, 2023.

Jensen’s successful completion of Mission 1 – a five-week online NCAS course – earned him a spot to participate in the online Mission 2: Exploration Simulation. Jensen is one out of hundreds of community college students nationwide to participate in the virtual experience.

What does this mean? Well, for Jensen, it meant he had the opportunity to work in a collaborative environment with community college students from across the country, as well as a mentor from NASA.

The first mission tasked students with developing an infographic to advertise a NASA mission with the help of a NASA mentor. Once the infographic was completed, NASA evaluated the submissions and selected specific students to move on to participate in Mission 2, Jensen being one of those students.

Mission 2 was a seven-day commitment that saw Jensen team up with other students to design a mock mission. His team was tasked to design a lunar habitat mission to investigate how crop growth could work outside of Earth.

“We were given a list of different types of equipment, rockets, engines, payloads that we can have, and were given certain constraints like weight, cost, and power usage,” noted Jensen. “And we had to choose what technologies we wanted to bring and then justify why we made those choices.”

Jensen, along with his team members, invested substantial time into the project, which saw them submit over 150 pages of documentation to support their proposal, and eventually present their findings to a panel of NASA professionals.

“I think the biggest help from SUNY CCC in this project was the soft skills I’ve developed, especially with team communication and presentations,” said Jensen. “I’ve given quite a few presentations at SUNY CCC and every one of those has built up to the point where I felt comfortable being the team lead in front of a panel of NASA professionals, which can be a little bit nerve-racking as you may imagine, but I think all of the experience I’ve had at SUNY CCC set me up for it, so when the time came, I wasn’t even nervous.”

So, how does one participate in such a robust, exciting, and insightful project? For Jensen, it was math professor Jay Hurlburt who encouraged him to apply.

“I’ve always been interested in science and engineering, and I’ve always wanted to pursue that path, especially with space sciences institutions like NASA, so when I saw an opportunity to do something adjacent to that as a sophomore in community college, it was an opportunity I couldn’t afford to pass up,” added Jensen. “At the time, I didn’t know if I was expecting to move on to other missions. I thought that even by participating in mission 1, even if it’s just an infographic, it would bring me closer to people and experiences closer in that field.”

Mission 3 of the project will be in person at one of NASA’s space centers, as Jensen and others await to hear who will be invited for the final mission.

About the NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS)

Selected community college students learn more about NASA’s missions and careers in science and engineering throughout the virtual experience. Students form teams and design a mission to explore the Moon or Mars. Each student team joins a design team, fulfills a team role, manages a budget, and develops communication and outreach strategies. Students also attend events hosted by NASA subject matter
experts, receive information on how to apply for NASA internships, and virtually tour NASA’s unique facilities during the event.

With this activity, NASA continues the tradition of engaging the nation in its mission of human exploration and sustainable expansion across the solar system and bringing new knowledge and opportunities back to Earth.

For more information, visit: https://go.nasa.gov/ncas