Technical STEM Workforce Development Re-Imagined: The Lucy Student Pipeline and Competency Enabler (L’SPACE)

NASA’s Lucy Student Pipeline and Competency Enabler (L’SPACE) is a novel student collaboration program designed and implemented for the NASA Lucy Mission. This technical STEM workforce development program has been designed to provide an authentic, team-based learning environment to support STEM majors as they prepare to enter the space exploration ecosystem. L’SPACE recruits and serves from colleges and universities all over the United States of America and is designed at every level to foster a STEM identity in the students, working to create a more diverse workforce in the future. From the program’s inception in Fall of 2018 through the Fall of 2023, over 8967 unique students have been accepted and participated in the program, with 8070 having completed the L’SPACE academies. Through active mentoring and support, the completion rate for the L’SPACE Program is 90%. L’SPACE participants come from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and represent 915 US colleges and universities, including 328 community colleges. The level of effort of the participants across all the elements of L’SPACE represents over 750,000 hours of workforce development training delivered and completed. The L’SPACE Team’s staff, internal and external evaluators actively evaluate all elements of the program to make sure that the program is meeting the participants’ and industry’s needs. L’SPACE uses a fast track and iterative approach, being informed by the data to make needed adjustments to the program as often as needed to reflect participant-centered and/or industry changes in the rapidly evolving workforce development environment.