Following on from the huge success of Association for Science and
Discovery Centre’s (ASDC) Destination Space, which engaged over
730,000 children and adults with Tim Peake’s mission to the
International Space Station, the UK Space Agency is supporting
ASDC to create new space resources and to work with five UK
science centres and museums to deliver space activities in 2018.
Destination Space is a national STEM programme created and run by
ASDC and funded by the UK Space Agency. The first phase of this
national programme ran from 2014 to 2017 and engaged, inspired
and involved families with school-age children, school groups and
teachers, and communities across the UK with the amazing stories,
science and achievements of human spaceflight and Tim Peake’s
Principia mission. Overall 733,017 children and adults took part
in this ASDC programme in the first 15 months of delivery and
many more continue to do so today.
This new six month programme builds on all this training,
knowledge and enthusiasm for space science and exploration
currently in science centres across the UK, and ensures delivery
of this content continues well into the future. Specifically,
this programme will focus on celebrating the science and
engineering of the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the
new Mars rover for the ExoMars mission, and will introduce
satellite applications and the plans to enable space launches
from the UK. It also will develop content more widely that can be
used by multiple partners and ASDC in future projects around
space science.
The programme will invite applications in January from the twenty
Science and Discovery Centres and Museums around the UK that
delivered Destination Space 1 - from Eden in Cornwall to the
Scottish Science Centres, and from W5 in Belfast to the Science
Museum in London. Five centres will be selected, and they will be
trained in March to run this cutting-edge schools and families
programme across 2018 and into the future.
This programme will be directed and managed by the UK Association
for Science and Discovery Centres who have considerable
experience managing national strategic multi-partner science
engagement programmes. The activities and events will be
delivered in collaboration with science centres with expertise in
engaging the public with space science, along with specialist
expertise from researchers and UK Space Agency partners. This
exciting new programme runs from 16 October 2017 until 31 March
2018.
