A signing of a memorandum of understanding between Marshall Space Flight Center and UNA will take place at 12:30 p.m. Feb. 7 in the Raburn Wing conference room in Keller Hall.

“This is the first formal agreement that UNA will ever sign with NASA, so we hope that this is the beginning of a long journey,” said Santanu Borah, professor of management and marketing.

Chris Randall, external relations office technical liaison for NASA said that this will be NASA and UNA’s first official collaboration under what’s called a space-act agreement.

“This will be for the purpose of really collaborating with UNA’s College of Business and College of Arts and Sciences,” he said.

Prior to the signing, representatives from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville will be in the Commons building and the Guillot University Center from 9 a.m. until noon to discuss the collaborative programs with the College of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences.

There will be an information desk in both the Commons building and the GUC.

“In addition to doing recruiting, we will have academic affairs here to talk about internships and co-op programs,” said Randall. “We hope to attract some highly performing students at this university to start collaborating with NASA on some of the patents that we already have available to the public.”

Whitney Young, NASA’s academic and international partnerships manager, said this will give students the opportunity to talk with academic affairs officials and ask questions about the co-op programs or the student interns program. She said internships are available for the summer, fall and spring.

“There will be a 30-foot inflatable rocket at the amphitheater,” Borah said. “There will be a virtual reality 10 x 10-foot chair that they are going to bring in and people can experience space. They are going to have a lot of goodies to be given out.

“There will be a NASA astronaut spacesuit that you can get in and see what it feels like and get some pictures taken. It’s going to be a very big day.”

Sophomore Michelle Stone said she thinks this will be a great event for students who are interested in working for NASA.

“It will give students great networking opportunities, and I would definitely be interested because I think networking is important,” she said. “You never know who you could meet that could help you get down the path to your goals.”