Guest speaker Mr. Michael Rice SAFRA Coordinator ECSU Office of Sponsored Programs

The IEEE Student Branch #66221 held a business meeting on November 7, 2013 at 5:00pm in 229 Dixon Hall on the campus of Elizabeth City State University. Several items of branch business were taken care of including, election of officers, app[ointment of a program committee, and dues discussion. The complete minutes of the meeting can be found at: http://nia.ecsu.edu/ieee/student/minutes/131107-ecsu-ieee-stdnt-brnch-minutes.pdf

IEEE-GRSS Guest Lecturer
Michael J. Rice
North Carolina Space Grant Opportunities & "MAVEN"
A New Satellite Mission to Mars

Mr. Michael Rice currently works in the ECSU Office of Sponsored Programs, as the SAFRA Coordinator. His professional background, however, has been in the field of satellite mission operations. He worked for Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc. (HTSI), as a contractor to NASA at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. During his fifteen years with Honeywell, Mr. Rice was involved in all phases of satellite mission development, from pre-mission requirements definition, to spacecraft integration & testing, to on-orbit satellite operations. Some of the satellite missions he worked with included the NASA Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Landsat-7, and the Small Explorers (SMEX) series, as well as the Air Force Relay Mirror Experiment (RME).

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission is part of NASA's Mars Scout program, funded by NASA Headquarters. Set to launch in 2013, the mission will explore the Red Planet's upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind. Scientists will use MAVEN data to determine the role that loss of volatile from the Mars atmosphere to space has played through time, giving insight into the history of Mars' atmosphere and climate, liquid water, and planetary habitability.

(L to R) Je'aime Powell, Branch Advisor: Dr. Malcolm LeCompte, Branch Vice President: Tatyana Matthews, Branch President: Andrew Brumfield, Branch Treasurer: Michael Jefferson, Branch Secretary: Jessica Hathaway, Branch Representative: Alicia Reynolds, NENC IEEE-GRSS Chair: Dr. Linda Hayden, Branch Representative: Michael Cobb