Student’s Space Dreams in Full Flight with Time Capsule to Mars Project

DURHAM, NC - David Rokeach is going to be an astronaut one day. He’s been saying so since he was three. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I figure being a part of Time Capsule to Mars will help me get there,” he jokes. But he isn’t entirely kidding. “It’s something I’ve always been passionate about,” says the second year Daytime MBA student. After deciding against an astronomy degree, David has found ways to be involved with space throughout his career. He worked on Capitol Hill with Rep. Randy Neugebauer, who serves on The Committee on Science, Space and Technology, where he got to learn about NASA and experience it from a policy perspective.

Time Capsule To Mars: A Student-Driven Interplanetary Mission – February 23, 2015

MELBOURNE, FL - Feb 23, 2015 - Cassidy Chan ‘15, aerospace and mechanical engineering double major, a team of other Florida Tech students are part of the world’s first privately-funded and student-led interplanetary mission to Mars through one of the largest crowd-funding campaigns in history: Time Capsule to Mars (TC2M).  Together with student-led teams from other participating universities, they are working to design, build, launch, navigate and land a CubeSat-based spacecraft on Mars. The project is being overseen by Explore Mars, Inc., a nonprofit created to advance the goal of sending a human to Mars within the next 20 years. “We’re calling this a new model for student-led innovation and I think it’s something that every participating university can get a lot of value out of,” says Duke University student and business director for TC2M, David Rokeach. Aerospace industry leaders like Draper Laboratory, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne seem to agree—they are providing support to students.

Florida Institute of Technology - http://blogs.fit.edu/blog/student-stories/time-capsule-mars-student-driven-interplanetary-mission/#.VPE5HPnF9DQ

Student-Led Mission To Mars Completes Systems Architecture Study at MIT – February 4, 2015

BOSTON, MA – Feb. 4, 2015 – An audacious plan by eight universities for a student-led mission to Mars took a big step forward with the completion of a key technical review of systems requirements at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in January, with the team targeting a launch within the next few years, mission organizers say. Time Capsule to Mars™ (TC2M) hopes to deliver to Mars, by 2019, a “time capsule of humanity” carrying digital content from millions of people from around the world for future human explorers to recover. University teams from across the US are collaborating to design, build, and ultimately operate a CubeSat-based spacecraft that will deliver its payload to the Mars surface. Time Capsule to Mars is a project of Explore Mars, Inc.

Explore Mars - http://www.exploremars.org/student-led-mission-to-mars-completes-systems-architecture-study-at-mit

New Ion-Propulsion System Could Deliver Time Capsule to Mars – 26-June, 2014

WASHINGTON — A student-led mission aims to send a time capsule to Mars, using a new, more compact kind of propulsion system. The Time Capsule to Mars mission is designed to bring three tiny "cubesats" containing photos, videos and other media provided by people around the world to the Red Planet, using "ion-electrospray technology." This new kind of propulsion system could deliver the cubesats to Mars in as few as four months, the mission's organizers

Space.com - http://www.space.com/26356-time-capsule-mars-ion-propulsion-system.html

Student-Led ‘Time Capsule to Mars’ Funding $25M Mission by Flying Photos – June 24, 2014

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The team behind a student-led, private mission to Mars wants to send you to the Red Planet — for just 99 cents. Time Capsule to Mars (TC2M) is now offering anyone with a computer or cell phone the chance to upload a photo or other digital image to fly onboard its planned trio of 4-inch-wide (10 centimeters), Mars-bound probes for less than a dollar. As the project's name implies, TC2M hopes to deposit digital archives on the Martian surface for colonists to someday discover.

Space.com - http://www.space.com/26337-time-capsule-mars-photos-crowdfunding.html