Thompson Falls students win trip to space center

Who knows — if you look closely you may be able to see an “I Love the Blue Hawks” sticker on the fender of a future NASA mission to the moon.

When NASA astronauts return to the moon, an event targeted for 2024, they may well be going there and exploring the lunar surface thanks to the contributions of a team of Thompson Falls High School students.

In a nationwide competition held last month, a team of young space “scientists” from T-Falls won an all expenses paid trip to the Kennedy Space Center this coming August after their group was drawn as the Montana representative for successfully completing a demonstration of their skills and training gained as a result of the competition.

The trip to Kennedy Space Center comes after the Thompson Falls team, under the guidance of science teacher Doree Thilmony, qualified for a trip to the state Northwest Earth and Science Pathways (NWESSP) organization, held May 1 at Montana State University in Bozeman.

Thilmony’s students have been active in the competition known as Artemis ROADS. The nationwide challenge presented by ROADS, which stands for Rover Observation and Drone Survey, followed a series of tasks and challenges the students were required to successfully complete. Artemis is the name of the huge rocket that will carry a crew of 12 astronauts and multiple scientific experiments to the moon during the 2024-25 school year.

The curriculum and supplies for the challenging projects related to the lunar mission, were paid for and distributed by NWESSP. Thilmony’s science class was divided into three teams to tackle the projects, Team Astraeus, Target Acquired, and The Big Dippers.

When they reached the halfway point in the “mission” and had achieved a status level based on completion of projects under the NWESSP auspices, all were invited to a “HUB” event in Bozeman.

On May 1, the teams were required to send their final mission development log for review and a chance to be drawn for the Kennedy Space Center trip. Students were also required to demonstrate the skills they had learned during the training they had acquired. On May 19, Team Astraeus won the drawing to represent Montana, winning the trip over 38 other schools and more than 400 students from throughout the state.

Rowan Ackley, Jeremy Fausett and Carter Marquardt are members of the Astraeus group.

ROADS, Thilmony said, draws on real NASA projects and provides a learning experience for students along the way.

“ROADS takes inspiration from actual NASA projects and guides students on a space-related mission,” she said. “The mission for this year was the trip back to the moon. That event is scheduled to take place next year and will carry 12 astronauts to the lunar surface for at least six days while they conduct experiments and gather information with rovers and drones around the South Pole of the Moon.”

At the ROADS event in May, the T-Falls students presented their “mission development logs” demonstrating their knowledge and ideas on the launch phase of the mission, flying drones through above the lunar landscape, and solving potential issues related to landing on the moon, a feat not achieved since the early 1970s by astronauts from the Apollo manned missions.

The eventual goal will be to establish a lunar base which can be used to facilitate exploration of Mars during the next decade.

During their project, students from Thilmony’s class kept a detailed log of such things as their investigation of the terrain around the moon’s South Pole, collecting data for closed systems, packing a Moon Kit with personal items they would take if they were actually on the mission, and calculating costs for shipping, as well as other mission-related topics.

“It has been a lot of fund and the students have learned so much, not only about the moon, but how to overcome failures by learning from them,” Thilmony said. “They have also learned how to build resilience and enjoy success when things go right. We are proud of them all.”