The Challenger Learning Center of Northwest Indiana Experience Education Mission Statement To create an exciting learning environment designed to explore space through innovative programs that will change how teachers educate, students learn, and foster in them a long term interest in science, math, and technology. The program is aimed at but not limited to middle school students .
Teacher training is provided and pre and post visit curriculum kits are supplied.
When students arrive at the Challenger Learning Center, a short briefing takes place after which the class is divided into two groups of approximately twenty students each. One group is assigned to Mission Control and the other to the Space Station. Primary targets include comets and asteroids, which scientists believe are the oldest most primitive bodies in the Solar System and may preserve the earlies record of the material that formed Earth and its planetary neighbors. During this mission, team members work as scientists and engineers headed to Rendezvous with a Comet as part of this continued study of our Solar System. The Mars Control team is charged with the selection of entry and departure trajectories before the landing and subsequent lift-off the Mars Transport Vehicle can occur.