{"id":16999,"date":"2018-11-04T12:07:53","date_gmt":"2018-11-04T17:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=16999"},"modified":"2018-11-04T12:09:14","modified_gmt":"2018-11-04T17:09:14","slug":"student-cubesat-projects-roundup-nov-4-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbyspace.com\/Blog\/?p=16999","title":{"rendered":"Student CubeSat projects roundup – Nov.4.2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

A sampling of recent stories about student CubeSat<\/a> projects and programs:<\/p>\n

** Young women are crowdfunding Kyrgyzstan’s first satellite \u2014 Quartz<\/a><\/p>\n

Of the world\u2019s 195 countries, 72 have official space agencies, including\u00a0Nigeria<\/a>,\u00a0Bangladesh<\/a>,\u00a0Peru<\/a>, and\u00a0Bolivia<\/a>. Kyrgyzstan does not. So a group of young women decided to start their own.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kyrgyzstan is not an easy place to be female; it was described\u00a0last year by Reuters<\/a>\u00a0as \u201ca nation rife with domestic violence, child marriage and bride kidnappings.\u201d The dozen or so members of the Kyrgyz Space Program, who range in age from 17 to 25, came together for a free robotics course started by journalist and TED fellow Bektour Iskender last March and meet twice a week at the offices of Kloop, the independent journalism school Iskender runs in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan\u2019s capital. They are crowdfunding their work towards building and launching a\u00a0cube satellite,\u00a0<\/a>a miniature design known as a CubeSat that can cost as little\u00a0as $150,000<\/a>\u00a0to produce.<\/em><\/p>\n

** ASGC [Alabama Space Grant Consortium] gears up to build first collaborative CubeSat to measure gamma-ray bursts<\/a> – Univ. of Alabama at Huntsville<\/p>\n

Based at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), ASGC member universities are Alabama A&M University, Auburn University, Tuskegee University, The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, UAH and University of South Alabama. ASGC members have individually launched two previous CubeSats, and five CubeSat projects are underway independent of the collaborative effort.<\/em><\/p>\n

The first collaborative ASGC CubeSat project will carry a gamma-ray burst (GRB) detector to be placed in the vicinity of the moon to detect short gamma-ray bursts.<\/em><\/p>\n

** Cal Poly students helped integrate first CubeSat to photograph Mars, image released – Mustang News<\/a><\/p>\n

Students from the on-campus organization Cal Poly CubeSat Laboratory, or PolySat,\u00a0helped integrate two CubeSats for launch in May, which just became the first spacecrafts of their kind to photograph Mars. The two CubeSats \u2014 MarCO-A and MarCO-B, collectively called MarCO \u2014\u00a0are twin miniaturized satellites, each roughly the size of a briefcase, that will be testing communications capabilities in deep space.<\/em><\/p>\n

PolySat members partnered with NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) to help integrate MarCO before take-off, which involved final spacecraft check ups and securing both CubeSats into their deployers. MarCO-B captured a photo of Mars on October 3 as part of a test in exposure settings and the image was released by NASA October 22.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here is the CubeSat photo of Mars released by NASA JPL:<\/p>\n

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The Pale Red Dot Look closely: Here\u2019s the first picture of #Mars taken by a CubeSat, thanks to our tiny #MarCO spacecraft, currently traveling to the planet behind #InSight. Visit the link in our bio for more info about the mission and a full-size image: https:\/\/go.nasa.gov\/2AmiWCp #NASAInSight #InSight #NASA #JPL #NASAJPL #PaleBlueDot #deepspace #interplanetary #space #technology #tech #cubesat #cubesats<\/a><\/p>\n

A post shared by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory<\/a> (@nasajpl) on