Ottawa-Carleton Educational Space Simulation

The Ottawa-Carleton Educational Space Simulation (OCESS), unofficially known as "Spacesim", is a student-run organization within the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board that operates primarily out of Lisgar Collegiate Institute. The chief activity of the club is to educate youth about the sciences with relation to space.

The Ottawa-Carleton Educational Space Simulation, or Spacesim, is a non-profit organization that promotes a greater understanding of space exploration and research in students of all ages. By conducting a 120-hour mission to a chosen planet, moon, or asteroid each year, Spacesim strives to foster initiative and responsibility in its members, while instilling love and respect for space and science.

The most important activity conducted by Spacesim is its annual 120-hour simulated space mission. This mission is conducted in a simulated spacecraft, or Habitat, designed and built by the organization. The current habitat was built in the 2008/2009 school year, after the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board asked the OCESS to move to a different room within the same building. The previous habitat had been built in 2001.

Accompanying the Habitat is an array of custom-made software written by the current Teacher Adviser of the organization, Dr. James Magwood. This software handles everything from environmental conditions to the navigation and piloting of the Habitat. Dr. Magwood's work with the organization earned him Carleton University's 2010 Patrick O'Brien High School Teaching Award.

One mission, in 2011, visited Europa, a moon of Jupiter, an anomalous object and the Gliese 581 planetary system. The original flight plan was to fly to the potentially habitable Gliese 581g but due to unknown radiation levels and low fuel, the mission landed on Gliese 581f. While the simulation generally steers away from speculative science such as a mission destination the existence of which is indeterminate, this year's was chosen to underscore for members the real life proliferation of exoplanets.

Previous missions include the 2010 mission, which visited three moons of Jupiter, the 2009 mission to Iapetus, the 2008 mission to Mars, and the 2007 mission to Borrelly.

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