DOLLAR BAY — On Tuesday, students in the Marine Robotics program and the SOAR High School Enterprise at Dollar Bay-Tamarack City High School, under the direction of advisor Matt Zimmer, had the opportunity to visit the field test site of NASA’s IceNode in Baraga. The field trip was a follow up to a classroom presentation by NASA’s team on Thursday, March 10.

NASA’s team has been conducting tests below the surface of the ice in Keweenaw Bay since Friday, March 11.

During the trip, Dollar Bay students ran two of their service remote operated vehicles (ROVs) in an effort to view IceNode, which is a buoyant sensor pod used for persistent in-situ measurements beneath ice shelves, below the ice surface. IceNode was developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology.

Among the Dollar Bay students involved was Jasper Lee, a member of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), which is part of the U.S. Aerospace Education program. His rank is cadet senior airman. The U.S. Aerospace Education program is one of three congressionally mandated missions of CAP.