The purpose of this lesson is to teach students about the three dimensional Cartesian coordinate system. It is important for structural engineers to be confident graphing in 3D in order to be able to describe locations in space to fellow engineers.

Students learn how engineers navigate satellites in orbit around the Earth and on their way to other planets in the solar system. In accompanying activities, they explore how ground-based tracking and onboard measurements are performed. Also provided is an overview of orbits and spacecraft trajectories from Earth to other planets, and how spacecraft are tracked from the ground using the Deep Space Network (DSN). DSN measurements are the primary means for navigating unmanned vehicles in space. Onboard spacecraft instruments might include optical sensors and an inertial measurement unit (IMU).

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the students to the Sun. They explore various aspects of the Sun including its composition, its interior workings, and its relationship to the Earth.

Students are introduced to the fabulous planet on which they live. Even though we spend our entire lives on Earth, we still do not always understand how it fits into the rest of the solar system. Students learn about the Earth's position in the solar system and what makes it unique. They learn how engineers study human interactions with the Earth and design technologies and systems to monitor, use and care for our planet's resources wisely to preserve life on Earth.

Students explore the outermost planets of our solar system: Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. They also learn about characteristics of Pluto and its interactions with Neptune. Students learn a little about the history of space travel as well as the different technologies that engineers develop to make space travel and scientific discovery possible.

2010 marks the 400th anniversary of Galileo's astonishing sightings of features on the moon, stars, and moons around Jupiter that no one had seen before. Recreate these new ways of seeing and exploring from the materials and techniques Galileo had on hand, while you reflect on the times and works of Galileo. What was it like to improvise new ways of seeing and exploring from the materials and techniques on hand? What do we notice? What surprises us? How can we relate to past experience and ideas? What are we curious to research? How does our experimenting grow into our learning? Let your own curiosity drive your explorations.

One of the exciting challenges for engineers is the idea of exploration. This lesson looks more closely at Spaceman Rohan, Spacewoman Tess, their daughter Maya, and their challenges with getting to space, setting up satellites, and exploring uncharted waters via a canoe. This lesson reinforces rockets as a vehicle that helps us explore outside the Earth's atmosphere (i.e., to move without air) by using the principles of Newton's third law of motion. Also, the ideas of thrust, control and weight all principles that engineers deal with when building a rocket are introduced.

Students learn how and why engineers design satellites to benefit life on Earth, as well as explore motion, rockets and rocket motion. Through six lessons and 10 associated hands-on activities, students discover that the motion of all objects everything from the flight of a rocket to the movement of a canoe is governed by Newton's three laws of motion. This unit introduces students to the challenges of getting into space for the purpose of exploration. The ideas of thrust, weight and control are explored, helping students to fully understand what goes into the design of rockets and the value of understanding these scientific concepts. After learning how and why the experts make specific engineering choices, students also learn about the iterative engineering design process as they design and construct their own model rockets. Then students explore triangulation, a concept that is fundamental to the navigation of satellites and global positioning systems designed by engineers; by investigating these technologies, they learn how people can determine their positions and the locations of others.

Students explore orbit transfers and, specifically, Hohmann transfers. They investigate the orbits of Earth and Mars by using cardboard and string. Students learn about the planets' orbits around the sun, and about a transfer orbit from one planet to the other. After the activity, students will know exactly what is meant by a delta-v maneuver!

Global Satellite Navigation Systems (GNSS), such as GPS, have revolutionized positioning and navigation. Currently, four such systems are operational or under development. They are the American GPS, the Russian Glonass, the European Galileo, and the Chinese Beidou-Compass. This course will address: (1) the technical principles of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), (2) the methods to improve the accuracy of standard positioning services down to the millimeter accuracy level and the integrity of the systems, and (3) the various applications for positioning, navigation, geomatics, earth sciences, atmospheric research and space missions. The course will first address the space segment, user and control segment, signal structure, satellite and receiver clocks, timing, computation of satellite positions, broadcast and precise ephemeris. It will also cover propagation error sources such as atmospheric effects and multipath. The second part of the course covers autonomous positioning for car navigation, aviation, and location based services (LBS). This part includes the integrity of GNSS systems provided for instance by Space Based Augmentation Systems (e.g. WAAS, EGNOS) and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM). It will also cover parameter estimation in dynamic systems: recursive least-squares estimation, Kalman filter (time update, measurement update), innovation, linearization and Extended Kalman filter. The third part of the course covers precise relative GPS positioning with two or more receivers, static and kinematic, for high-precision applications. Permanent GPS networks and the International GNSS Service (IGS) will be discussed as well. In the last part of the course there will be two tracks (students only need to do one): (1) geomatics track: RTK services, LBS, surveying and mapping, civil engineering applications (2) space track: space based GNSS for navigation, control and guidance of space missions, formation flying, attitude determination The final lecture will be on (scientific) applications of GNSS.

Students are introduced to the engineering challenges involved with interplanetary space travel. In particular, they learn about the gravity assist or "slingshot" maneuver often used by engineers to send spacecraft to the outer planets. Using magnets and ball bearings to simulate a planetary flyby, students investigate what factors influence the deflection angle of a gravity assist maneuver.

An introduction to our solar system the planets, our Sun and Moon. To begin, students learn about the history and engineering of space travel. They make simple rockets to acquire a basic understanding Newton's third law of motion. They explore energy transfer concepts and use renewable solar energy for cooking. They see how engineers design tools, equipment and spacecraft to go where it is too far and too dangerous for humans. They explore the Earth's water cycle, and gravity as applied to orbiting bodies. They learn the steps of the design process as they create their own models of planetary rovers made of edible parts. Students conduct experiments to examine soil for signs of life, and explore orbit transfers. While studying about the International Space Station, they investigate the realities of living in space. Activities explore low gravity on human muscles, eating in microgravity, and satellite tracking. Finally, students learn about the context of our solar system the universe as they learn about the Hubble Space Telescope, celestial navigation and spectroscopy.

The students will paint and arrange spheres to form a model of the solar system. They will first make models using the plastic spheres of different sizes. Then they will make similar models using clay, cotton, etc., and organize them in the right order from the Sun.

This activity is based on a reduced-scale model of the Solar System built on a map of a city students are familiar with. This provides them with an understanding of the great distances between the different bodies of the Solar System and their relative size. Students will investigate the characteristics that are required from these bodies to build a scale model using common objects.

This is an introduction to the study of the solar system with emphasis on the latest spacecraft results. The subject covers basic principles rather than detailed mathematical and physical models. Topics include: an overview of the solar system, planetary orbits, rings, planetary formation, meteorites, asteroids, comets, planetary surfaces and cratering, planetary interiors, planetary atmospheres, and life in the solar system.

To understand the challenges of satellite construction, student teams design and create model spacecraft to protect vital components from the harsh conditions found on Mercury and Venus. They use slices of butter in plastic eggs to represent the internal data collection components of the spacecraft. To discover the strengths and weaknesses of their designs, they test their unique thermal protection systems in a planet simulation test box that provides higher temperature and pressure conditions.

This lesson introduces students to the space environment. It covers the major differences between the environment on Earth and that of outer space and the engineering challenges that arise because of these discrepancies. In order to prepare students for the upcoming lessons on the human body, this lesson challenges them to think about how their bodies would change and adapt in the unique environment of space.

What is a star and what shape is it? Students explore both artistic and scientific representations of stars, learn that stars are like the sun but much further away and make their own star hat.

Have you ever wondered what happens to the different stars in the night sky as they get older? The Star in a Box application lets you explore the life cycle of stars. It animates stars with different starting masses as they change during their lives. Some stars live fast-paced, dramatic lives; others change very little for billions of years. The app visualises the changes in mass, size, brightness and temperature for all these different stages.

Have you ever wondered what happens to the different stars in the night sky as they get older? The Star in a Box application lets you explore the life cycle of stars. It animates stars with different starting masses as they change during their lives. Some stars live fast-paced, dramatic lives; others change very little for billions of years. The app visualises the changes in mass, size, brightness and temperature for all these different stages.