The Purdue chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) won Best Outreach Project of the Year.

The award was announced at SpaceVision, the annual SEDS-USA Conference, in November. The event was held virtually.

Purdue’s SEDS chapter, Purdue Space Program (PSP), won for its Midwest Rocketry Forum. The Midwest Rocketry Forum (MRF) was intended to be an in-person weekend conference to commemorate the chapter’s 25th anniversary, but after COVID-19, University restrictions to campus visitors forced a change in approach. Instead of having speakers and panels in person, PSP opted to host podcasts and virtual workshops for MRF.

"SEDS strives to promote outreach engagements and activities to all its chapters to provide a variety of underrepresented communities opportunities to fall in love with and learn all about space. The Purdue Space Program Midwest Rocketry Forum does just that," said Libby Loyd, SEDS USA executive director.

MRF organizers have been pleased with the quality of the podcasts — they even snagged United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno — and the response to the workshops. They're intending to continue the podcasts in the spring. 

“We are so incredibly grateful to SEDS for enabling us to do this and to all our guests and volunteers who helped us make the dream a reality,” said MRF Chairperson Jack Costello, a junior studying multidisciplinary engineering. “It is so fitting that for an effort to explore and honor the history of our club, we won the same award that we did for Purdue Space Day in 2012. The first 25 years of our club have been exciting, hopefully the next 25 are even better.”

Purdue SEDS was one of three student organizations that helped run Space Day, called Fall Space Day when it was created in 1996, before it became an independent student organization.