Support for long-term classroom planning and professional development. Information covering important topics for today's educators and parents. Some students are selected to be astronauts, flight planners, and flight controllers. Other students build and test the experiments that the astronauts will conduct. Some set up mission control, while others design the mission patch.
Students also serve as security officers or carry out public relations activities.
For the simulated shuttle mission, school buses or recreation vehicles are converted to represent shuttle orbiters. During preflight activities, the shuttle is prepared, and experiments and a flight plan are made ready for launch day. The flight itself includes lifting off, conducting experiments on orbit, and rendezvousing with the crew from the sister school. After landing back at the home school, the student astronauts are debriefed and hold press conferences. The astronauts celebrate their successful missions with their fellow students at school and with the community at an evening postflight recognition program.