Academy telescope sites connect Penn State to universe

  • Published
  • By U.S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  The Air Force Academy's Falcon Telescope Network just added Pennsylvania to its international collection of telescopes.

The same telescopes cadets use to capture data from satellites shuttling through space will give high school students and Penn State students the chance to learn about the galaxy.

The Falcon Telescope Network brings together the Academy with Penn State, one of 12 partner sites around the world telescopes are being stationed. The initiative, run by the Department of Physics' Center for Space Situational Awareness Research here, will provide training for future officers and learning opportunities for Kindergarten through college students.

Once operational, the network can be remotely accessed and operated here from a virtual operations center run by Department of Physics cadets.

Dr. Francis Chun, director of the Academy's Center for Space Situational Awareness Research, said the Academy strategically placed the telescopes to allow observation of satellites from different vantage points on earth, giving researchers the chance to learn what the satellites are for and who initially launched them.

Space awareness is important to Air Force Space Command, currently tracking more than 18,000 objects in low Earth orbit.

"Satellites are hard to see, so every vantage point helps determine how it's made and what it's supposed to do," Chun said. "It's important we're aware of what's up there and what it means to national security."

While learning about satellites launched by other nations is the main goal of the project, Chun said the telescopes are part of the Academy's national educational efforts.

"A lot of the students in the graduate programs are coming from abroad and it's harder and harder to excite our own students involved in a science, technology, engineering and mathematics career," he said. "We're hoping by partnering with colleges and universities with Falcon Telescopes, we can use the network to bring a little STEM not just to higher education, but to (Kindergarten through 12th-grade) as well."

Tom Taylor, senior research engineer at the Air Force Research Laboratory and principal investigator at Penn State, spearheaded the initiative at Penn State after learning about it at the Academy. The program, he said in a Penn State news release, "gives Air Force officers real experience using telescopes.

"They're trying to create a hands-on environment for their cadets, so when they graduate they're better prepared as Air Force officers," Taylor said. "We feel Penn State has a tremendous strength to do educational outreach with the telescope."

According to the news release, the Penn State telescope, stationed near the University Park Airport in Benner Township, Pa. - known as the PSU-Falcon - is the fourth telescope site installed. Telescopes are operational in La Junta and Sterling, Canberra, Australia, and Vicuna, Chile. Future sites are scheduled to be installed in Grand Junction and Durango, Hawaii, Germany and South Africa.

Bellafonte Area High School chemistry teacher Julie Coder said she and other teachers at the school will be able to make requests for observational data from any of these stations During the regular school day, she said, students will be able to gather data from a telescope halfway around the world where it's night.

"It's going to be an amazing opportunity for students to do real science," she said. "Our students are going to have access to this network of telescopes; most students don't have access to a small backyard telescope, never mind a network of telescopes with sites all over the globe."

All 12 locations are due to be fully operational by the end of 2015.