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Go for Launch

¼¤Çé¿ì²¥ Professor Joshua Colwell and his team of physics faculty and students watched as their experiment rocketed to space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard. 

Summer 2016
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Images Courtesy of Blue Origin

On April 2, 2016, a team of ¼¤Çé¿ì²¥ scientists made history as their experiment became the first to go to space aboard ’s New Shepard. The project, known as MEDEA and led by , examines how space dust builds up to form planets and the rings around planets. The experiment is one of several that Colwell, along with , Post Doctoral Associate Julie Brisset and a team of ¼¤Çé¿ì²¥ students, has worked on. The others include four experiments that were conducted on parabolic flights and two on the — earning the team another historic distinction: the first to partner with Blue Origin and the ISS to conduct research.

Read more on ¼¤Çé¿ì²¥ Today.
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“We want to understand how planets form and what conditions are needed to form planets — in particular, planets that could be habitable like Earth.”

— Joshua Colwell, ¼¤Çé¿ì²¥ professor
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Post Doctoral Associate Julie Brisset, undergraduate students William Santos and Alexandra Yates, and Professor Joshua Colwell stand in front of the capsule that housed their experiment.
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339,138
Height reached in feet (2 miles above the Kármán line, which marks the boundary of space)
3,635
Feet at which rocket engine was re-ignited for landing
11
Minutes from liftoff to landing
3
Minutes in high-quality microgravity environment
3rd
Test flight of this vehicle to space
1st
Science payload on New Shepard
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The New Shepard booster successfully completed its vertical landing.