Astro Camp Saturdays are one-day science camps for children ages 7-12 on Saturdays during the school year. Camp participants take part in themed missions filled with exciting experiments and activities.

This year's fall themes are "Robotics 102" and "International Space Station - Island in the Sky."

From the Apollo missions which let man explore the surface of the Moon, to the robotic "scientists" that have examined Mars for many decades, NASA has been engaged in a mission of discovery in our solar system and beyond for more than half a century. As NASA moves forward into a new era of space exploration, the Astro Camp team will embark on a voyage to investigate the science behind twenty-first century space travel.

The International Space Station (ISS) will be the focus of much of NASA's research for the next decade. As a microgravity "laboratory in the sky," the ISS will be the stepping-off point for research on long-term human bases on distant bodies in our solar system. After learning how astronauts adapt and live aboard the ISS, each Astro Camp team will be asked to develop a design for a human outpost on one of three distant destinations in our solar system: the Moon, Mars and an asteroid.

Astro Camp teams will develop an economical and reusable transportation system, design satellite and robotic missions to make exploration maps, create science laboratory bases with renewable energy resources, and form three-dimensional models of the Moon, Mars and asteroids. This venture will allow Astro Campers to look ahead to cutting-edge opportunities for human space exploration. Along the way they will realize new possibilities and resources for future Astro Camp colonies in space.