In late-February, Temple engineering faculty and students from a NASA-funded space lab celebrated the 30th anniversary of the NASA Space Grant with a special trip to Washington, DC.

John Helferty, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the Student Space Exploration and Embedded Systems Lab, helped to organize the trip.

"It was a great way to highlight the work that's been done over the last three decades," Dr. Helferty said. "Students have truly benefited from NASA's support in bringing space-related engineering projects and opportunities for discovery."

The team brought completed robotics projects to showcase to members of Congress and their staffs, such as a high-altitude balloon payload launched during the 2017 solar eclipse. Students also met NASA Administrator Jim Brindistine for a Q&A session at NASA headquarters, and heard about the NASA Artemis program.

"It was kind of surreal." added Melony Breeze, a mechanical engineering major who was joined by fellow students Morgan Basileo, Darshan Patel and David Fiel. "It was great to see how many different facets there are at work and research being done at both graduate and undergraduate levels, all covered under the space umbrella."