Image Phoenix College ASCEND team featured in News! May 5, 2023 Faculty mentor, Eddie Ong, says that the AZSGC high-altitude ballooning program gives students hands-on experience that "is typically not introduced until a student’s senior year of college or graduate school, so its availability for community college students builds a pipeline of competent transfer students who continue their education at university, often as a cohort to support each other." Read more
Image Spring 2023 ASCEND High-Altitude Balloon Launch! April 1, 2023 On Saturday, April 1st, teams from across the state of Arizona launched their 3lb payloads on two high-altitude weather balloons as part of the Arizona Space Grant’s ASCEND program. Photo credit: Iván González López, Phoenix College ASCEND team lead. Read more
Image ASCEND High-Altitude Ballooning Program: Fall 2022 Launch Nov. 19, 2022 The ASCEND program's Fall 2022 launch was on November 19th. For this program, students are tasked to design, build, and then launch payloads each semester on high-altitude weather balloons. This year, we launched two balloons. Balloon #1 reached 100,420 ft and Balloon #2 reached 102,272 ft. Read more
Image Sandra Montero Heads to Space Camp at Biosphere 2 Feb. 9, 2022 Phoenix College engineering student, Sandra Montero, is one of five Arizona Space Grant students that has been selected to participate in the 2022 Space Camp at Biosphere 2 (SCB2) program. Read more
Image Meet the Glendale Community College ASCEND Team! Oct. 22, 2021 ASCEND is a statewide high-altitude ballooning program where student teams design, build, fly, and analyze data from small payloads. GCC's "Space Force Crew" is preparing for launch this Fall 2021. Stay up to date with their progress by checking out their website! Read more
Image Jacqueline Do attends the NASA Lucy Mission Launch! Oct. 16, 2021 Phoenix College ASCEND program lead, Jacqueline Do, attended the launch on October 16th, 2021. "Over the next 12 years, Lucy will fly by one main-belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids, making it the agency’s first single spacecraft mission in history to explore so many different asteroids." Read more
Image Reaching to the Sky and Beyond – Phoenix College ASCEND Program Mentor, Ernest Villicaña, Featured in Recent Article July 14, 2021 This article provides insight into Ernest Villicaña's unfaltering commitment to the program, and we can't thank Ernest enough for all of the ways he continues to move the ASCEND program forward. Read more
Image Sian Proctor selected to fly on first SpaceX civilian mission to Earth orbit later this year! March 30, 2021 Dr. Proctor was the AZ Space Grant ASCEND (balloon payload design program) mentor at South Mountain Community College from 2007-2011. Image Credit: AZ Central. Read more
Image Phoenix College ASCEND Team Prepares for Launch Feb. 20, 2021 The Phoenix College team is gearing up for our statewide ASCEND program's Spring high-altitude balloon launch happening March 27th, 2021! Teams from 3 universities and 7 community colleges participate in this program, and data collected during flight is then shared at our AZSGC Symposium in April. Read more