Huntsville, AL. – On the 54th anniversary of the launching of the Explorer I satellite, the Rocket City Space Pioneers (RCSP) invite Alabama public school fourth-graders to participate in their mission to the moon. RCSP, the Alabama Tourism Department and the Alabama Department of Education (ADE) encourage fourth graders to name RCSP’s moon-bound lander in a statewide contest. The winning class will get a free, three-day trip to the Pathfinder program at Space Camp, and the teacher will receive a $500 gift card for classroom supplies.

The RCSP team is developing a low-cost lunar lander/rover system for conducting commercial and scientific missions on the moon and potentially other planetary bodies in the Google Lunar X PRIZE, $30 million competition. The competition challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch to the moon a privately funded spacecraft capable of completing a series of exploration and transmission tasks. The lander/rover system is capable of making a soft landing on a planetary body and deploying a rover. The Rocket City Space Pioneers are asking fourth-grade students in Alabama public schools to choose a name for this lander.

Dr. Tommy Bice, State Superintendent of Education said, “We are very excited to be a part of this challenging competition. Alabama’s students are focusing on math and science more intensely as part of STEM education initiatives. This contest will help to encourage their knowledge of the science and engineering that is required for space exploration.”

Through the Name the Lander contest, students will learn about moon landers through a lesson plan and activity sheets developed by Space Camp leaders. Fourth-grade teachers will have an opportunity to submit their respective classes’ suggested name through an online registration system. The registration period for the contest is January 31 – February 15. The contest period is February 15-23. The winning name will be selected in early March. The winning class will then be notified.

Tim Pickens, team leader for the Rocket City Space Pioneers, said, “The RCSP team is excited to involve Alabama students in our mission. Another one of our missions is educational outreach. The

Rocket City Space Pioneers want to encourage students to pursue studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and this contest is one way we can show them cool things that can be done in these disciplines.”

The Rocket City Space Pioneers team, led by Huntsville-based Dynetics, is comprised of businesses, educational institutions and non-profit organizations. Headquartered in Huntsville, the team’s members are all either based in Alabama or have a presence in the state. The Rocket City group is among 26 teams from all over the world that are registered in the competition.

Dynetics President Tom Baumbach explained the importance of education outreach and STEM to the company leading the Rocket City Space Pioneers: “I've observed over the 44 years of my engineering career that a majority of the truly productive technical people I've worked with had a strong vision of their profession that started when they were 10 or 11 years old. That’s when we need to capture the imagination of our young students and let them feel the beginnings of passion that can serve them their entire life.”

Baumbach continued, “It was reinforced when I worked at Bell Telephone Labs in the late 60s – they expected that you'd do your best work before you turned 30! That's why Dynetics is so thoroughly committed to STEM and why we're excited to have the fourth graders in Alabama name our lander – we hope it will stimulate the very age group that will be the start of our next generation of scientists and engineers.”

For more information about the Rocket City Space Pioneers and the contest, go to www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com.

About The Rocket City Space Pioneers: The Rocket City Space Pioneers are led by Huntsville-based company Dynetics and consist of team members Teledyne Brown Engineering, Andrews Space, Spaceflight Services, Draper Laboratory, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, the Von Braun Center for Science & Innovation (VCSI), Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Moog, Analytical Mechanics Associates (AMA) and the Huntsville Center for Technology.