ICE Cubes assets for STEM Education

Our assets can support STEM education programs by giving students the opportunity to engage with real space hardware and giving educators the chance to enrich their skills and widen their horizons. We offer a variety of assets tailored to different learning outcomes:

AI Box:

This NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX computer is enhanced with sensors (relative humidity, temperature, atmospheric pressure, acceleration, rotation, magnetic field, radiation camera, CO2 concentration, particulate matter) and already resides in the ICE Cubes Facility, on the ISS. It’s capable of running software uplinked from ground and downlinking data in real-time! Educational activities could be based on real data collected from the station’s environment or on developing software compliant with the space requirements. Read more here.

Media Set:

This communications system with camera, microphone and speaker is also already on-board. It is most suitable for live events with astronauts and educational outreach! Soon, it will be upgraded to Media Set Mk2, which will open new STEM opportunities. Thanks to a touch screen and a power bank, astronauts will be able to better connect with their audience and take us around the station. In addition, it will be equipped with a NVIDIA Jetson Orin computer, making it a powerful tool for visual or voice recognition AI applications. Find out more here.

Calliope-Mini:

A single-board computer with sensors and actuators (accelerometer, temperature, LEDs, buttons, buzzer, etc.) designed for basic level coding, widely used in German-speaking curricula. Thanks to its very own programming environments (MakeCode and RobertaLab), students can used block-based coding to create their own projects. It’s ideal for challenges for the youngest students and can be enhanced with some additional hardware like the foam ball used during the Code4Space competition. Furthermore, the Calliope can be bought separately so students can easily test on ground before launching their code to space!

Science Cube:

This Cube carries up to 12 samples and is capable of real-time visual monitoring. It has the option to have temperature control, opening doors for a variety of biological experiments. If needed, the samples can even be returned to ground after their stay in microgravity. A great way to do some lab work is in the most special lab in Earth’s vicinity!​

Kirara Cube:

Kirara is a protein crystallization incubator, developed by our partner JAMSS. With it’s 96 sample holders, its excellent for studying high-quality protein crystals and their application in drug discovery!​ Learn more about the Educational activities Kirara can enable.

Experiment Box:

A very simple storage box capable of hosting passive experiments. After launch, it is stored under our facility, in the Columbus module. This cube is useful for studying effects due to microgravity exposure. Be creative, you can send (almost) anything!​

———————–

Some of these assets can be used in combination, to further improve their capabilities. For example, using the Media Set to stream a Calliope-Mini activity, or using the AI Box to analyze experimental data from the Science Cube.

The future of humanity expands into space; by opening its doors to students from a young age, we may transform the impossible into reality, inspiring the next generations to lead and shape this evolution!

Are you looking for a platform to support your educational activity? Reach out to us and let’s spread the excitement of learning together!​

Make sure to watch the recorded webinars organised together with Space Commerce Matters, and also explore the links and related articles to find out more about these assets and their use cases.