Category Archives: Space participation

Amateur/Student Satellite, Education, Space participation

More and more opportunities for student projects to reach space

November 21, 2013 TopSpacer

Opportunities are opening up rapidly for students from high school to grad school to see their own space science and satellite projects reach space.

For example, NanoRacks offers access to the International Space Station for both science experiments on the station and to launch Cubesats from the station : Right This Way to the Space Station – Air & Space Magazine

Here is a video of 3 satellites released from the ISS this week:

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And on Tuesday evening, an Orbital Sciences rocket orbited 28 Cubesats, many of which were built by students groups including one in high school:

Here’s a video of the launch of the Minotaur rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia:

DIY space, Rockets, Space participation

Copenhagen Suborbitals: Opens new “giant facility”

November 18, 2013 TopSpacer

Copenhagen Suborbitals opens a much bigger facility for building and storing their rockets and capsules: Copenhagen Suborbitals Giant Facility Now “Unlocked” – Wired Science

Activism, Space participation

A NASA Meetup for space enthusiasts

November 14, 2013 TopSpacer

Here’s a report on a NASA Social event in Pasadena, California : Inside a NASA Meetup, Where Science Fans Become Space Ambassadors – Underwire/Wired.com

The NASA Socials are the brainchild of JPL News and Social Media Manager Veronica McGregor, who started the program in January of 2009 (in those days, they were called “tweetups”; NASA switched to “socials” in 2012). For a year, McGregor had seen NASA’s burgeoning social media community connect space fans around the world. Now, she wanted to see if that engagement could translate to real life.

Four years and over 70 events later, nearly 5,000 space enthusiasts have attended 73 NASA meetups at 10 locations. Some give attendees a front-row seat to milestone events like launches and landings; others — like the one we’re at now — are intensive introductions to current and upcoming missions. Cumulatively, their impact has been significant: Not only have they given NASA fans an up-close and personal glimpse of their space program, but they’ve created a legion of enthusiastic and informed ambassadors for science and space exploration, armed with new tools and connections.

“The NASA Social alumni community are family to me,” says Shannon Moore. She’s been attending NASA tweetups and socials since the STS-129 launch in November of 2009. These days, she’s one of the group of volunteers who run and maintain the community wiki NASAtweet.com – the unofficial online hub for NASA socials and other space-related meetup events.

Amateur/Student Satellite, Space participation, Space Science

High school student satellite to go to space on Minotaur I rocket

November 14, 2013 TopSpacer

Orbital Sciences plans to launch a Minotaur I rocket on November 19th and it holds 29 satellites, including 24 cubesats. Among these is a satellite built by students at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia :

(Dulles, VA 13 November 2013) — Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB), one of the world’s leading space technology companies, will launch the first satellite designed and built by high school students into Earth orbit aboard a Minotaur I rocket next week. The small satellite, known as TJCubeSat (TJ³Sat), will be launched aboard the U.S. Air Force’s ORS-3 mission as one of more than two dozen secondary payloads the Minotaur rocket will carry into orbit. The mission is scheduled to take place from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport located at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in eastern Virginia. The launch is currently scheduled for Tuesday, November 19, 2013, at approximately 7:30 p.m. (EST).

The TJ³Sat is a small-size CubeSat developed, built and tested by students from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia. Over the past several years, volunteers from Orbital’s technical staff mentored the student team and provided engineering oversight, while the company made its space testing facilities available and provided financial support for the satellite project. TJ³Sat was assigned to the ORS-3 mission launch through NASA’s Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) program based on launch manifest availability.

“Since the beginning of the TJ³Sat program, Orbital has purchased flight hardware and contributed mentors and advice throughout the process, as well as assistance with final testing prior to launch,” said Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are thrilled to see the hard work and dedicated efforts of the students at Thomas Jefferson High School come to fruition and look forward to the educational benefits this satellite will bring to other students around the world.”

The TJ³Sat project was conceived as a method to interest students around the world in space-related science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education. TJ3Sat utilizes the CubeSat standard design developed by Stanford University and California Polytechnic State University. The cube-shaped satellite measures approximately 3.9×3.9×4.5 inches (10x10x12 centimeters) and has a mass of about 2.0 pounds (0.89 kilograms). The TJ3Sat’s payload is a phonetic voice synthesizer that converts strings of text to voice. Once converted, the voice is transmitted back to Earth over amateur radio frequencies. Students from around the world can submit text strings to be uploaded to the satellite for transmission. The satellite’s design and operations data is public, enabling students from other countries to use it freely.

“This partnership between our school and Orbital has allowed the students to gain valuable real-world experience in aerospace engineering and related disciplines, which will serve them well as they continue on their future careers,” said Dr. Evan Glazer, Principal of Thomas Jefferson High School.