Mountain Park ES teacher Kati Searcy was selected to attend the December 5 launch of the Orion spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center. Searcy was one of 150 @NASA Twitter followers who live-tweeted the event as a member of the NASA Social Media Team, a program that provides opportunities to learn and share information about NASA's missions, people and programs.

Orion is NASA's new spacecraft built to carry humans, designed to allow journeys to destinations never before visited by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. On this inaugural, unmanned Exploration Flight Test-1, Orion tested systems critical to crew safety as it traveled farther into space than any spacecraft built for humans has traveled in more than 40 years.

To be chosen, Searcy had to meet specific social media engagement criteria. "Being selected was an honor. This means so much to me and the students at Mountain Park Elementary School," she said. Searcy, a teacher of Talented and Gifted students who has taught at Mountain Park Elementary for 24 years, worked for NASA for a three-year period as a facilitator for NASA Explorer Schools programs at Kennedy Space Center.

As a NASA Tweetup attendee, Searcy and the other 149 Twitter users had the same credentials and access to the event as news media, allowing them to view the launch of Orion, participate in media briefings, tours and other NASA events throughout the two-day event. They also interacted with engineers and scientists from Orion and other upcoming NASA missions, and toured the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Searcy also met Patrick Simpkins, the space center's director of engineering, with whom her fourth and fifth grade students Skyped live last year. Students submitted questions for her to ask him.

Searcy's tweets can be followed on Twitter (Twitter.com/SearcyTag) and at her blog (SearcyTag.Weebly.com/Orion-Launch-Coverage). She also created videos throughout the experience that are posted on YouTube.